Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Equilibrium of the Opposites
by sally.h.yi
Summary: A continuation from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Gates To Infinity: The Journey of a Reborn. A new heroine was summoned into the world but she does not have the attributes of being one! She doubt herself why she was chosen as she does not have the mindset of a hero, but even so, her adventure begins!
1. Welcome to the World of Pokémon

**Chapter 1: Welcome to the World of Pokémon **

Eterna wandered in a white realm. This blank space was her first she had ever dreamt of. After some walking, she was bored and decided to sit down and thought about what was the best solution to deal with the overpopulation of humans. She always thought of annihilate them, but she believed in good will and so killing was not her option. The best solution was not having children would solve the overcrowding issue in a long run. By doing so, there would be less unfortunate people around and happiness would be easier to achieve.

However, she hated herself for succumbing to negativity, though she could not help it as she was too in an unfortunate state. In urban areas that money was everything, it was hard for her to find a full time job due to competitiveness in a small country. So, she tried to opt for being a physiotherapist as she loved to help people to recover from their injuries and the after effects of surgeries. It was funny how her wants contradicted to negative thoughts.

She shook her head to stop reasoning to herself and staring at the never ending space. All of a sudden, she heard a voice echoing in space that she did not know who it was.

_"__You who know the ordeals of life and the blessing of death, I summon you to come to my aid. Save the land that is in peril. Save the ones that are not supposed to be in their end and, stop The End of his impulse…"_

"Wait…huh? I don't even know what you…"

Then she heard another voice.

"Hey! Wake up! What are you doing here?"

The nudge by an unknown someone was enough to wake her up. She opened her eyes and her heart stopped a beat. It was night time and she was in an area full of rocks with symbols glowing in blue light. Some of them were about eight stories high. She turned her head and saw a monster that looked like an African kid with a leafy turban on its head. It had a wristband with a badge icon on it on his left arm and carried a sling bag. She quickly scrambled a short distance away from it and pinched herself. It was painful.

_"__It isn't a dream at all! Where am I?"_ she thought.

She did many deep breathing to calm down. The monster approached her cautiously and asked.

"Hey, I don't mean you harm. However, I must ask you this. Why are you sleeping in Mystical Mount? This area has great magic that Silence all Pokémon's moves at night!"

"Huh? Uh what? And…I can understand your words?" she stuttered.

"Oh no. You must be in a shock. Come on Fennekin, I shall lead you to Horizon Town so that you can rest properly."

"Fennekin? What is that?"

The monster crossed its arms and said, "Isn't that is your Pokémon name?"

Eterna looked down and realised she was yellow, fluffy and had no arms. She also felt that she had a tail and able to twitch her huge ears. She quickly stood up on her four feet. She tried to walk but stumbled many times on the floor. After being mesmerised of her body, she had forgotten that she was supposed to be shock that she was no longer a human! She screamed and the monster beside her jumped.

It managed to recover and tried to persuade Eterna, "Whoa whoa! Don't frighten me there! Okay okay, I shall carry you. Just…don't heat up your body too much okay?"

It carried her with ease. Eterna did not understand what it meant by heating herself up, until she felt embarrassed of it carrying her. The sudden spike of heat frightened Chespin, so she insisted that she should walk so as not to trouble it. While she was getting used to walking on fours, it started another conversation with her.

"I should introduce myself. My name is Chestnut the Chespin. It is a name given by my parents. They…passed away when I was three years old. Right now I am fourteen years old male and already able to manage on my own. Though, it is mostly thanks to Mistress Hoopa for introducing me to rescuing in mystery dungeons. How about you?"

"_So I can address it as a he isn't it?" _she thought and spoke after that, "My name is Eterna. I am twenty-five years old."

"What!? Are you sure you are twenty-five years old? You look like a youngster to me!"

"Umm…I don't know what to say, I was a human sleeping in my room and when you woke me up, I am in a different form and…"

Chestnut was surprised like he had heard a keyword, "You were a human?"

Eterna looked down on the ground and replied nervously, "Yeah. I don't know why I am here. The only clue I have was a voice I heard in my dream."

"Please explain it to me."

"It was a female voice and it sounded desperate. She said I should save this land. To me, that speech of hers was too sudden to me, and I am not a hero type at all! I don't have a clue of how to save the monsters of this land!" she took a big gulp of air and continued, "By the way, is Pokémon a shorten word for Pocket Monsters or something? What an odd name."

"Are you who I think you are?" he muttered and did not reply to her question.

"Huh?"

"We have no time to lose! Hurry! We must meet Mistress Hoopa as soon as possible!" he gestured her.

"Ah…okay." she followed. She was amazed she could run effortlessly with her four legs now and she did not pant much like her human counterpart. She was not unfit, but because of years of swimming made her clumsy on land, especially when she was running.

Once they were out of Mystical Mount and ventured into the forest, the sun began to rise over the west. It was a magnificent view for Eterna as she never seen a sunrise before. However, her moment of appreciation stopped when her tummy growled so loud that Chestnut turned his head towards her.

"Haha! Oh well, I guess we should have our breakfast first then. Wait here while I gather some berries in the forest." he said.

"Okay."

Eterna finally could view the sunrise without any interference. She sat down and glazed the symbolic rocks bathed under the sunlight. When the sunlight reaches the glowing symbols, they stopped illuminating. She would never forget the magical sight, but at the same time she worried about her being in a foreign world. What would her parents do if they learned that she had disappeared? She could not even imagine of their reactions.

By going through her thoughts to kill time, it did not take long enough for Chestnut to come back. She spotted two big unusual coloured fruits, especially a fruit looked like blue chestnuts crowded together. She narrowed her eyes and spoke to Chestnut.

"Are they poisonous? They don't look like edible fruits."

"Oh they aren't. They are berries in this world. The blue one is Rowap Berry and the yellow grape lookalike is Jaboca Berry. They tasted very good! Here, take the Rowap Berry."

She did not take it, so Chestnut munched a little of the berry and swallowed it to prove that there was nothing wrong with it. Seeing that it was okay to eat, Eterna took the berry from Chestnut and bit a huge chunk of it. Then, she spat it out as the spiciness in her mouth was too unbearable for her and she shot flames out of her mouth, literally. Chestnut backed away to prevent himself from getting barbequed.

"Argh! Bleh! Too spicy…and sour!" she began to cry and her mucus fell from her nose.

Chestnut apologised, "I…I'm sorry! I thought Fire types love spicy food! Here…take the Jaboca Berry instead. The bitterness will ease the spiciness in your mouth."

She swapped the berry and immediately bit the Jaboca Berry. Sure enough, the extreme bitterness eased her discomfort and she munched away happily. As for Chestnut, he could finally finish his berry after being worried for her. Once they had their meal, they continued their travels into the forest. That gave lots of time for Eterna to wonder who was Hoopa and whether she was trustworthy or not.

Then Chestnut stopped in his tracks which stopped her from pondering. She wondered what was wrong until she heard some conversation in front of them.

"…no matter how many times we save the locals beyond the mountains and lead them here, their life force still continue to dwindle!" spoke from a Pokémon with a low-pitched tone.

"I know…Oran Berries aren't enough to vitalise them. We have to give them Heal Ribbons to constantly boosting their recovery. Unfortunately, they are hard to find." replied a Pokémon that sounded quite young.

"Geez! This is so frustrating!"

Then, a third voice can be heard. It was a female but somewhat monotonous.

"I am sorry that my power cannot save them. But I have a suggestion. Remember what she said that she will use her remaining powers to summon a human and transformed her into a Pokémon so that can save the locals here? We should find that Pokémon."

"I see. We can't do much on our own. But where do we find that Pokémon? This continent is huge." asked the young Pokémon.

"We can head to Town Horizon. It is most likely he or she will be there.

As the group walked far away for Chestnut and Eterna to listen to their remaining conversation, he looked at her with a worrying face.

"I don't know who those Pokémon are. I never heard those voices before and yet they know that The Being of Life had summoned you to come over to aid us. Anyway, we should see the mistress and hear what she has to say."

They pressed on. By now, the sun had fully risen and the mist was noticeable in the forest. The forest's trees were unlike any trees Eterna had seen in her country. The tree leaves here were big and the colourful fruits were in abundance. She spotted an apple tree as well; an oddity growing in a tropical forest. The mushrooms were red caps with orange spots that looked poisonous, yet Chestnut said they were not. It was like this world was not based on reality at all.

It took them about two days of walking and avoiding other Pokémons to finally exit out the forested area. Eterna complained that her legs were aching from the travelling, but Chestnut shut her off. He told her that the town was not far away and they should continue walking. She sighed and faced her frustration at the hills looming at a distance. The hills were covered by trees as well, and some waterfalls can be seen. The odd thing about the hills was that they were about the same height and width of each other. Her curiosity of the formation of the hills overwhelmed her anger towards Chestnut.

Moving through the grass plain was not easy for her as the grass were taller than her height but she could not afford to lose sight of Chestnut or else she would not be able to find her way out. As for him, he had no troubles navigating through by occasionally hopped out of the grass to find his bearings. They encountered many Pokémons that fed on grass. There were Miltanks and Tauros in herds, big rodents such as Pikachus and Dedennes, big birds and even predators such as Pyroars. They were all significantly bigger than the animals in Eterna's world, yet they bore some similarities. Maybe the planet she was in was Earth as well, but in another dimension?

The Pokémons did not pay heed to Eterna and Chestnut as they hastily made their way out of the grassland. Another few hours passed and eventually, they spotted the wooden fences that covered the huge settlement. There was an entrance guarded by two Pangoros. As Eterna and Chestnut approached them, she realised that those pandas were huge. The two Pangoros looked down at them and nodded before letting them pass through. It seemed that they knew Chestnut, so they allowed his guest to come in as well.

Horizon Town was the only settlement of diversity of Pokémons getting supplies for their journey, accommodation for travellers and where the Rescuers stayed as well. The buildings were made out of either clay, wood or both. The town had bushes and trees all over the place so the buildings were not neatly aligned like Eterna used to see in her homeland. The pathways were made by clearing the grass. There also were water holes and crops with irrigation around the center of the town.

With greetings from the Pokémons along the way, Eterna felt that she was a celebrity. Humans don't naturally greet strangers as they thought it was too tedious to greet so many of them, and they did not feel any sort of attachment to them to start a conversation unless they needed assistance.

Eterna and Chestnut reached the pink dome house with exquisite designs. Two circles on the side of the pink door were painted in gold and the house stood about one and a half stories high. He knocked on the door and a feminine voice could be heard.

"Come in."

They entered the house. Eterna was marvelling the simple yet homely household items in the vicinity, totally different as what she expected from the exterior. There was a short table at the right and a basket of berries on top and four feathery cushions on the ground around the table. There were flowers along the lone two meters width rectangular window where the table was. At the left was a bed with soft pine leaves and a wooden tub of water. The floor was carpeted with straw mats and a big lighted lamp hanging at the center. At the center top end had another long rectangular table with scrolls, pens and other sort of papers neatly stacked up. A Pokémon was sitting on a wooden chair with feathery cushion backrest and placing her cup on the table.

Chestnut greeted her first, "Good afternoon Mistress Hoopa, I am back from the recon mission and brought a Pokémon with me. Her name is Eterna and she fits your description of a being from a foreign world that can aid us on defeating The End.

Hoopa's eyes widened, "Is this true Chestnut? Well done! Let me take a closer look of her!" She stood up, levitated around Eterna and smiled, "Hmmm…I sensed great power hidden in you and…it seems that you can fully utilise it based on your mentality. The best way to awaken it is to go for rescue mission. Alright, you shall partner with Chestnut to learn what you need to survive in the mystery dungeons, and know what it takes to save the land!

Eterna stiffen a little of the training she had to go through, "I understand. I will try to keep up with him. Mistress Hoopa, may I know what is my hidden power?"

"That is for you to find out."

She felt disappointed of not telling her, "Oh, okay."

"Splendid! Chestnut, I leave her to your care. For now, just take the easier missions that do not need to travel far away from here. And you must inform me of her progress every evening. Is that alright with you?"

"Yes Mistress Hoopa." he replied without a delay.

"Good! Both of you are dismissed. I will notify you two when I think she is ready for the quest. Eterna, I am sorry that you have to go through so many troubles for us, but we really need your help. If something bothering you, you can ask for my advices anytime."

"It is okay, and thank you Mistress Hoopa." she replied.

Chestnut bowed down and walked towards the door. Eterna was not used to the custom of bowing in front of a boss so she frantically followed him out of the door. The only thing Eterna heard before the door close was Hoopa's warning.

"Be careful of your true self".

Eterna did not understand what she meant. Nevertheless, she walked with Chestnut to his house.

His house was not far away from Hoopa's. It was made out of wood with dried palm leaves as the roof cover and the shape of his house was rectangular. Inside his house was just a pine leaves bed at the center of the wooden floor, a basket of berries, a wooden tub with water half- empty at the left and baskets of orbs, scarfs and seeds at the right. Chestnut asked Eterna to wait in his house while he went out to gather more pine leaves for her to rest on. Eterna wondered how he could find the pine leaves in a hot and humid area, but since after she saw an apple tree not long ago, she had nothing to comment about.

She ate a Mago Berry and loved the taste. She also helped herself with some water by biting the wooden bowl to scoop it. Licking the water using her tongue was not efficient as gulping it down, but at least she could restrict herself from overhydrating. Feeling sleeping after she was full, she stared at the pine leaves bed. She thought that she should try whether the bed was comfy for her standard. She sat on the bed. It was softer than her mattress and she did not feel the hardness of the floor. She yawned and lied on her side to sleep. It did not take long to dream a huge withered tree with only two branches surrounded with tall leafy trees in front of her.

It spoke, _"At last, you have arrived. I am sorry that you have to see me in this state. My name is Xerneas. Although I need you to see me as soon as possible, you aren't ready to face the challenges yet. Get yourself prepared and once you are ready, come to Nature's Grace. I shall bestow a power that you can use to defeat The End." _

For the first time, Eterna was able to gather her thoughts and spoke to her, "Xerneas, are you already in this state before you summoned me?"

_"__Yes. My power was mostly drained by The End. I do not know his actual name. He isn't like this years ago. His role was to slowly drain all life force so that living beings should not waste the blessing they were given with and also, helps to recycle the materials creating them. But something must have happened that made him decided to end so many Pokémons' life quickly. I can still sustain myself, but I am unable to control Nature. Nature is the driving force of life and able to provide resources to sustain them. Without control, it will plunge the land into merciless storms and turn the land into barren wasteland. The sea will not be spared as well, and I fear that the effect will spread to other parts of the world. So far, even though Nature is out of control, it will take about a month before things go out of hand." _

"So…I have to learn quickly so that I can be an assistance to you. Speaking of power, isn't I already have one hidden in me?"

_ "__That power you are now possessing is something similar to a dark being that entered this land not long ago. However it does not bring any harm and it is trying its best to help the Pokémons as well. As for you, you need to train mentally to keep it checked. If not, it may…I feel that I should not say any further about this. The power I will give you can limit your native power. Yes, the power you have is already in you before you are born. It is just that you can't use it in your world."_

"That means the power I have within me is dangerous?"

_"__It can be, and at the same time, it doesn't. It is how you use it defines you whether you are good or evil. And now…I should let you have a good rest. We shall meet again Eterna…"_

After that, she dreamt of nothing.

She woke up afresh and saw Chestnut sleeping beside her on a new bed. Another Mago Berry from the basket had disappeared so she assumed that he had eaten one. She stretched her legs and her back and pieced up the words she had heard from Hoopa and Xerneas. Hoopa said that her power could save the land, but Xerneas warned that her power was not to be messed with. For some reason, Eterna was excited to see what her power looked like since it could be the one that she thought of as a human if she had a supernatural power. Hoopa said she should go on rescue mission could mean that her power could be activated when she was in stress.

She woke Chestnut up and begged him to bring her on a rescue mission now. He rubbed his eyes and stared at her.

"Are you sure you want to go today? We had travelled quite a distance to reach here. You should use this day for resting as starting from tomorrow, you will have to come with me every day."

"Hoopa said if I awaken my power, I will be ready for the journey to save the Pokémon here. Isn't it is better that I should awaken it as soon as possible?"

"I agree. Eterna, I am sorry that you have to go through all these ordeals to save us. Very well, let's go to the bulletin board."

Chestnut had refilled his sling bag with necessity items and led Eterna out of the house to the board. It took about ten minutes to walk there. The bulletin board for requests for rescuing or battle challenges were next to where the item stores were. Eterna browse the stores' intriguing items while Chestnut looked for a request. After he took the paper from the board, he tapped Eterna to follow him out of the town's exit. There, another two Pangoros guarding the openings and they wished them good luck on their mission.

Eterna asked what was the mission was. Chestnut explained that there was a youngster requesting for help in the Oddity Hill Mystery Dungeon.

"…It stated that he is in F10 and could not move on to another floor as there are too many strong Pokémons guarding the stairs."

"Wow…how did his letter able to get to the town?"

"When the Pokémon requested for help, the dungeon will warp the letter to a dungeon-made bulletin board. It is the one that we had seen."

She beamed, "Ooh! It is like emailing!"

"What is emailing?"

"It is human's way of communicating with each other. Okay I am ready for the mission! Let's go!"

They headed to the hills that she had memorised by their identical heights and width. The sight of the tall hills put her country's made up name for their lump of rock to shame. It did not take them long to reach there. Upon arrival, there was an opening with a swirling golden portal. There was a purple box called Inventory Box beside it and whatever opened the box would allow them to browse their own storage items and Pokécoins.

They entered the portal. Eterna was astounded by the design of the dungeon. The walls were made out of light brown harden soil with shrubs growing on it, the ground was grassy and there were water holes with creeks following all over the place. The dungeon had an artificial blue sky as the ceiling as well.

"Okay," Chestnut explained, "This dungeon consists of rooms and corridors. There are residents roaming here to toughen themselves up so when we encounter them, we have to fight our way out. Luckily, there are no traps here. Traps are hidden on the ground and will only appear when the explorers step on them, not the residents. Treasure chests and items may be in the rooms as well and all of them can be useful for our exploration. Of course we can't take them all due to the sling bag's limited space. The bag can store up to forty-eight items regardless of their sizes. Currently I am carrying twenty items. Ah yes, you should put on this ribbon."

He passed her a Joy Ribbon. It had no straps. She tried to put on her chest fur and it managed to stick on it.

"This ribbon will help you learn faster. As for me, I don't need any ribbon in this dungeon since I am pretty high level. Alright then, let's go."

They ventured in the corridor and soon they encountered Honedge. This sword Pokémon swung its blade violently at Chestnut, but he managed to stop his attack and clamped his blade.

"Come on Eterna; attack him with your fire attacks."

"Fire? Oh, I did shot one when I ate that nasty berry before. But how do I do it?"

"Heat up your body hot enough and then you are ready to fire away!"

"Okay. I will try."

She visualised that she was in a fire and it worked. Her body instantly heated up and when she felt the raging flame in her mouth, she exhaled and the string of fire escaped. Chestnut managed to dodge her attack and let Honedge burned in her flames. It screeched in pain and soon, it was warped away somewhere.

"Hey! Where did he go?" she asked.

"He had been warped out of the dungeon with his health fully recovered. So don't worrying about defeating the Pokémons." he explained.

"Oh! Will do!"

Floor by floor, Eterna managed to topple all the Pokémons they ran onto. She even gained new insights of the moves she could perform. She had Flamethrower, Light Screen, Flame Charge and Fire Spin. She loved to spam Fire Spin to trap the opponents, before using Flame Charge to boost her speed to tackle other opponents swiftly. Once they reached F10, Eterna was already exhausted from using her moves so she depended on Chestnut to defend her. Chestnut managed to defeat any Pokémons here with one hit. She envied his strength and smarts for his age even though she understood why he needed to be tough and resourceful. However, she did not notice a distance Psybeam attack from behind. She was hit and she let out a yelp. Chestnut turned his back and was stunned that she was not around.

She had warped out of the dungeon.


	2. A Taste of Inferno

**Chapter 2: A Taste of Inferno**

"She was defeated in the floor that the client was in?" questioned Hoopa.

"Yes. It is my fault for not healing her up first…" apologised Chestnut.

"It isn't your fault so please don't blame it yourself. It is tough to keep an eye on a team member in the dungeon no matter how experienced a team leader is. How is her condition now?"

"She…never spoken to me ever since I rescued the client."

"I guess she is feeling down. Give her some time to get over with it. In the meantime, maybe you should get her something good to eat to cheer her up. Give me a moment to find it."

She retrieved an item from the drawer and passed it to him. It was a square wooden box.

"Inside is a dark chocolate ball. It should help her relax a little. Alright, you should go back to your house now. It's late."

"I shall Mistress Hoopa." he bowed in respect and went out.

When he was near to his home, he heard a loud rant from Eterna.

"Fudge! I don't believe that I was defeated! Argh! I hate myself for being so careless! Everything does not go smoothly so why did I…"

After that it was just stomping around. Chestnut clenched the wooden box tightly with his two hands as he did not know how to deal with her anger. Actually, he never encountered this situation before. He mustered his courage and opened the door to find Eterna suddenly stopped in her rampage.

She panicked, "Ah! Uh, oh no. You heard what I said?"

"Uh no? What is it?" he lied.

"Oh nothing! I was just thinking aloud that's all."

He was surprised that she did not attempt to lie at all. Of course she did not mention that she was swearing.

"Anyway, I brought you a gift from Mistress Hoopa. She said it is a dark chocolate ball."

"Ooh! I didn't know there are cocoa trees in this world! Thank you! Um…can you open the box for me?"

He opened the cover to reveal a dark brownish ball. He put the opened box with the content inside under her nose. She looked at it with glee, and then she helped herself by munching it away. After she finished all of it, she felt something 'unlocked' within her. She stepped back from the box with eyes widened.

Chestnut was concerned, "What happened?"

"I felt something stirred within me. It isn't uncomfortable or anything, but…"

"Is it something to do with the chocolate?"

"I am not sure. Chestnut, can we go somewhere that has a wide open space?"

"Okay, sure."

They walked passed some trees to an open field of short grass. Eterna looked around for any Pokémons and confirmed there were not there. Then, she requested Chestnut to move away from her. He moved as he was told.

She relaxed and stopped containing that 'something' within her. It emerged out of her in flames with black core and white tips. The flames were not hot, but instead she could feel hatred radiating from them. Was this her true power?

"Wha…what are those flames?" scared Chestnut.

"This…is my power. Now I know why I was warned about this. Chestnut, do you mind if I attack you with these flames?"

"No way! I felt menace oozing out of them. You should stop using it!"

"Oh? Are you really that afraid? Hehehe, if that is the case…"

She had begun to lose herself. The flames enveloped her and her body changed colour into white with red glowing eyes. She turned her attention a building and sent her flames there. The fire quickly engulfed the building and cries of help from the Pokémons that were trapped could be heard for a mile away. That gained the attention of the residents and they tried to douse the flames using their attacks, but nothing happened. Eterna laughed hysterically of their desperation.

Chestnut shouted at her, "Eterna! Stop! You are hurting them!"

"Well, isn't it is your fault for not allowing yourself to be my target? Hahaha!"

"Eterna, you…leave me no choice."

Chestnut shot Seed Bombs at her. They hit, but that only made her laugh even louder.

"That is some wimpy attack you have! Ha! How about I return you a favour? I shall end your life so that you will no longer suffer from your lost."

He was shocked that his strong attack did nothing on her. With nothing else he could inflict damage on her, he beg her to stop.

"Please don't attack me! I am not miserable at all!"

His words did not reach her; instead she shot a Calamity Flame. This lukewarm fire was a twisted mix of white and black colour. Before it reached Chestnut, a shadow came in and absorbed the attack. Eterna was not pleased and demanded it to answer her.

"Who the hell are you?"

"There is no point for me to introduce myself. I shall put the end of your malice." replied the black figure.

Chestnut remembered that voice. He and Eterna had heard her in the forest.

The black figure leapt towards Eterna and placed its right hand on her forehead. The dark energy surged out from Eterna into her.

She struggled, "Argh! What are you…!"

"You should not abuse this power oh chosen one." Its voice was low pitched and without 'expression'.

"Curse you! When I see you again, I will… arghhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Once the dark power was leeched out of Eterna, she lost consciousness and reverted back to her usual self. She then collapsed onto the black figure's arms. The building that was covered in cursed flames disappeared as well. Chestnut was panting profusely as finally the mayhem was over. He saw two more Pokémons running towards the black blob. One is a big icy pine tree Pokémon and other is a young bodybuilder.

"Is she's alright?" worried the pine tree Pokémon. He spoke with a low-pitched voice.

"She is asleep that's all." replied the black figure.

"Whew! But why is her power similar to you Aura?" asked the bodybuilder. He was the one with a younger voice.

"We will need to ask her when she awakes." Aura the Black Mist turned her head to Chestnut. "Are you her friend?"

"Uh…we just met today, and I don't think I can call her as one since I saw the incident…" he responded.

"Good. If that is the case, we shall…"

"Hold on!"

They turned their attention to Hoopa levitating quickly to their side, "What is going on? I saw weird coloured flames that didn't burn the building but instead making the folks suffering!" She looked at Aura holding Eterna and anger welled up in her, "You! Are you the cause of this incident? Since you are a black silhouette, are you The End?"

The town folks grasped in horror.

Aura spoke, "I am not The End. I just get here when I saw this Pokémon using her dark power to torment people."

"Why will I believe you when you are the black mist?"

Aura found it hard to reply.

Hoopa snarled at it, "I will attack you personally!"

Hoopa used Psychic to restrict Aura's movement. The pine tree Pokémon used Ice Shard. The ice shattered on Hoopa distracted her concentration and Aura was freed. Then, the pine tree Pokémon used Mist to obscure her view. Hoopa instinctively repelled the mist and found that they had escaped with Eterna into the air. Frustrated, she shot a rally of Shadow Balls at Aura, but Aura expertly dodged all her attacks. Soon, the group had distanced themselves far away from Horizon Town towards Oddity Hill.

Hoopa turned her head at Chestnut and said, "Chestnut! Follow them! Eterna must not be caught by their hands! Who knows what horror will befall on us when our heroine is defeated!"

"Understood Mistress Hoopa!" Chestnut was confused of the situation but he knew it was better that Eterna was watched by Hoopa since her power had awaken. He ran after them and wore an Agility Scarf from his sling bag to boost his speed.

As for Hoopa, she headed to the nine Pokémons that were cursed by the flames. They were terrified and unable to speak. She instructed other folks to bring them to Dr Florges to heal them. They did as they told and Hoopa thanked them for their assistance.

She knew that sending Chestnut to find Eterna was not efficient enough, so she visited a building named Lost and Found known for retrieving _any_ lost things. She asked Aromatisse over the counter to speak to Team Hitoshirenu. Aromatisse's eyes widened in response.

"Is it that serious that you need their help Mistress Hoopa?"

"Yes, this situation is dire. I need the best search and rescue team there is!"


	3. A Long Night to a Refreshing Start

**Chapter 3: A Long Night to a Refreshing Start**

_"__Eterna…I guess you know the true intend of your power. Do not resent it; instead be familiarise with it to understand why you have it in you. Remember what I said before, it is how you use it that defines whether you are good or evil."_

Eterna opened her eyes. She was appalled of what she had done. She did not know what she did after she lost control of herself, but she had a feeling she did something nasty and almost killed Chestnut. She felt that he had every reason to hate her now. Tears went down her cheek as she was afraid of the power dwelled inside her. Even after Xerneas had mentioned about embracing her power, there was nothing good coming from an evil power that overwhelmed her sense of morality.

It took her time to realise that she was sleeping under a tree within the forest, and there were two Pokémons she had not met before resting beside her. She decided not to disturb them and took a stroll under the forest's openings. Bathed under the moonlight, she let her tears continued to flow down.

"I see you are wide awake?"

Eterna turned her head to the direction of the voice and saw a big black bird walking towards her.

"Who…who are you?"

"My name is Aura. As you can see, I am a black mist able to shape shifting into any physical object. My friends and I had saved you from someone attempting to use you."

Eterna wiped her tears and said, "What do you mean being used? I didn't sense anyone mistreating me."

"Do you remember when you awoken your power?"

"I think that was when I ate finish the…oh. I always thought it is due to me swearing a lot that released the dark power. But I don't see why Hoopa is using me at all."

"She has her reasons for doing so, and it is too early to judge her. Anyway, we will bring you to see Xerneas. She has something to give you."

"She had told me in my dreams. Have you seen her not in a withered tree form?"

"I have not seen her in her original form, but I can tell she is trying her best to conserve her energy so that she can bestow you her gift."

"I don't feel good accepting her gift that sapped some energy out of her…"

"She has other ways to maintain herself so don't worry about her. Your name is Eterna right?"

"Yes."

"A never ending cycle of life and death. What an interesting name you have."

"Thanks, but sometimes I think my name is too philosophical. Anyway Aura, how do I seal my power? I never want to use it again."

"Why is that so?"

"I don't want to end even one Pokémon's life due to my rage. I…don't even understand myself why I have such an unpleasant power."

"Your power may be due to inheritance, bestowed from someone, or bound to your soul. I am sure your power can be useful in some situation. However, I can only drain your power so you can still regenerate it though."

Her demon-free self had shattered, "Oh damn it…So, how do you managed to keep my power under control?"

"I am a dark aura from a being that was very powerful. That being was pain herself, that is why I can manage any dark powers."

"I see. If I gained my power back, can you teach me on how to regulate it?"

"Sure. I can teach you now without your powers regenerated yet."

"How?"

"You will learn by watching your previous life. Are you ready for this?"

"Well, it is night time so why not? But how do you do this?"

"I can move your consciousness to the origin of your soul. That is where the most crucial memory of your previous life holds. Alright then, close your eyes."

Eterna did as she was told. Aura placed its left shape-shifted hand on her head. It was cool and Eterna felt no hostility from it. Without warning, she found herself weightless and dived into a tunnel of darkness. A light was seen at the end of the tunnel and after a dazzling flash, she found herself in a place where a castle stood tall surrounded with lush flower field and crystal clear creeks. It was like she was in a fairy land. But all of a sudden, she heard a dragon's roar at a distance. She looked around to find an immense black beast flying passed her. It had a slim body and short two horns on its head. It had spikes on its forearms where the wings were and its long slim tail. Its glistering scales reflected the morning sunlight into spectacular of rainbows. It spewed fire at the flower field and roaring to show its intention of attacking the castle.

"Hey! You shouldn't do that!" shouted Eterna but the dragon paid no heed to her. It continued to burn the field till the soldiers appeared on the castle wall and used fire arrows to try to impede it. Unfortunately, the black dragon's scales protected it from piercing. It shot many fire balls into the castle. The soldiers had no choice but to evacuate the castle and made sure that the King and his children were saved. But the King refused and ran out of the castle to face the dragon. He was wearing thick golden coat over his brown tunic. He urged the soldiers to put off the fire instead of evacuating the castle.

The dragon smirked at his deeds and said, "Hmph! I wonder why humans still praised you even though the bodies of the defeated became fertilisers for your pretty flower field. I know your bloody history Dunerail and you won't be forgiven this time!"

"Hahaha!" the King laughed. "Is it just because that I killed so many humans to take the throne then you come to slaughter me? Who is the one that should be ashamed? Your arrogance is the one that lead me to become like this!"

"We dragons won't do unnecessary things until something evil has happened. We give humans chances to redeem from their mistakes, but it seems that you had failed and indulged yourself in a world of greed. Speak no more! You are done for!"

The black dragon shot a powerful fire at King Dunerail. However, his magic shield repelled its attack. He then threw multiple electric sparks at the dragon. The dragon shrieked in pain and collapsed onto the burnt ground. Eterna had no idea the King could use magic to attack a dragon. She watched the King approached the dragon with a grin on his face. He then chanted a spell that create a white giant spear and directed it into the dragon's heart. The dragon yelped and spoke in his last breath.

"I will…return and when I do, my hatred towards you will wipe your entire legacy to ashes!"

"Oh? You resorted to evil now? Ha! You will never be resurrected for I will send you to the netherworld!"

A black portal appeared under the dragon. Black hands emerged out of it and pulled the dragon down. It struggled but to no avail and gradually the dragon was gone and the portal closed after it.

The King smiled at the end and muttered, "This will be your eternal resting place _Eterna_! Hahahaha!"

After that scene and in a flash, Eterna found herself back to her body with Aura beside her. Eterna could not believe that she was once a cool black dragon, only to be defeated by the hands of a strong magic caster. Now she finally understood why she always had the urge to kill whenever a person made her feel uncomfortable. But when there were dragons and magicians on Earth? Or maybe a soul was able to travel through multiverse or some sort before it gained a body to live a new life? How did the dragon managed to escape from the netherworld, and did it took thousands of years to do so? She decided to ask Aura questions that it might able to answer.

"Aura, you showed me something that the world I was born in doesn't have; dragons and magicians. Does that mean that a soul can travel through multiverse to be reborn into a new life?"

It replied, "Unfortunately, I do not know the answer. So…you know who you are and why you have the power, am I right?"

Eterna was slightly disappointed of its reply, but she answered anyway, "I could hardly believe myself that I was a dragon! A male in fact! And yeah some tragic stuff happened that made me what I am today; a user of cursed flames."

"Intriguing…Dragons have strong mana in them and they can always regenerate it quickly. If that is the case, I want you to channel out your power now. It should come to you naturally."

"Umm…okay, here it goes."

She focused on a tree and falsified her thought that she hated it so much that she wanted it to be gone. In a blink of an eye, the cursed flames surrounded the tree and began to devour it, but the tree was still intact. Eterna was surprised of her power regeneration speed.

Aura commented, "As I expected. Your power seemed to only affect a Pokémon's mentality and giving uncomfortable pain, but it does not injure them physically at all. Still, it can kill it in time so you need to know when to stop using it."

Eterna was relieved, "Oh. So my power isn't as destructive as I thought at all! Or maybe I will be if I go ballistic. I will try not to go into that stage then. I can manage this!"

As she discarded her thoughts of killing the tree, the flames vanished. Eterna was thrilled that she could finally control her power. She did a little skipping dance, unaware that the other two Pokémons were awake.

"Oh, Missy! You are alright now!" said the icy pine tree Pokémon.

Started, Eterna stumbled and landed flat on the ground. The two Pokémons quickly went to her side.

"Oh I am so sorry! I don't mean to frighten you." he lifted her up so that she could stand. "Oh yes! My name is Snover. My friend here is Timburr and I guess you know the name of the lady in black there."

She shook her body to get rid of the soil, "Yeah I know. My name is Eterna. Thank you lots for saving me."

"Say, why do you have such an ominous power?" questioned Timburr.

"It is what I experienced in my previous life that made me what I am. Don't worry; I managed to keep it under control. And, it isn't that dangerous as you two thought it would be."

"I will still be rattled if you use it now…" mentioned Snover with a gulp of air.

Eterna's gazed downwards, "I understand. I am sorry that you have seen the bad side of me. It isn't intentional… Umm, may I ask where we are right now?"

"On the peak of Oddity Hill. There are many hills like this so it won't be easy for anyone to track us down." responded Aura.

Timburr continued, "Since we have rested enough, it is best we make haste to Nature's Grace via Blessing Forest, where Xerneas lives. There, we will be protected from any other intruders as we are the only ones able to meet her. Alright, shall we go now Eterna?"

"Yes."

Before they could react, a purple odd wave hit Timburr. The impact caused Timburr to slam on a tree trunk and he fainted on the spot.

"Timburr!" shouted Snover. "Who did this?!"

Three Pokémons leaped out of the bushes. They looked like black ninja frogs with their tongues as the scarfs. One of them spoke for the group.

"We are Team Hitoshirenu. Our names go by numbers. I am One, and this is Two and Three. We are here to retrieve Miss Eterna."

"Should you resist, we shall attack without mercy." said Two.

"Of course we will resist!" angered Snover.

He summoned Razor Leaf at the trio. However, they expertly avoided his attack and retaliated with Rock Slides. He quickly used another Razor Leaf to knock back and sliced the rocks. Aura shape-shifted it body to protect Eterna so that the fragments would not hurt her. It also extended its protection around Snover. Team Hitoshirenu responded by using Ice Beams at Aura to froze it. Their attacks could not freeze her, but the impact made her difficult to protect Eterna and Snover for long.

"You two needed to find ways to defeat them. I cannot hold this for long." it said.

"They are so nimble! How can we even land an attack on them?" argued Snover.

"I should able to." insisted Eterna. "Besides with my Joy Ribbon, I can learn more about battling this way."

"Okay. I will support you from behind Miss Eterna!"

Aura replied as well, "I shall remove the barrier to conserve energy. I will assist both of you when you ask me to."

It retracted its shield and Eterna dashed out with her conjured Light Screen. That surprised the ninja frogs as they took some steps back. Seeing this as an opportunity, she used Flamethrower at them. They promptly used Water Pulse to douse the fire. Now Eterna was unsure of what types the frogs were since they were able to use so many moves.

One commented, "Miss Eterna, you don't wish to come with us quietly isn't it? If that is the case, we will have to knock you out."

Eterna did not reply. She was still thinking on what to attack them. The frogs always attacked in synchronisation. And since her fire attacks were easily doused, the only way was…

Three Water Pulses slammed on her screen shook her out of her thought. She stepped back and the screen shattered. Snover backed her up by using Blizzard to repel them a little. Eterna used this chance and casted Inundation Flames on each of them, but the attack seemed to not affect them at all. At least, they were not moving away from the fire yet.

"We were trained to endure pain so your attack does nothing on us." said Three.

Eterna muttered to herself, "Damn it, they are tough assed! Now what? Ah yes creativity!"

This time she mixed her attacks. She sprouted Fire Spins on them as well. The red flames mixed with Inundation Flames to create huge spinning fire vortexes of dark red. Realised the danger, the ninja frogs used Water Pulse and even used Extrasensory to try to douse the fire but to no avail. The fire vortexes started to move in closer to them and the intense heat burning their slime coated skins. This time they panicked and plead Eterna to stop.

She simply replied, "Oh I won't stop until you three promised to head back empty-handed."

"We can't! If we go back empty handed, we will lose our jobs!" said One.

"Why do you need a job when you can find items in mystery dungeons to sell?" Eterna was surprised on how well she could make her point in this situation. It might be because she was having the advantages over them.

"…You are right. But we have reasons for doing this. It is to save our tribe from being destroyed by Hoopa."

"Destroyed by her? She manipulates Pokémons behind the scene as well? Now I really think she is more evil than me. However there will be a disaster worse than having your tribe wiped out. I am sure you three noticed something is wrong in this continent?"

"Yes…Hoopa stated that a being from above will save us. That prediction of hers is what we like to believe it is true."

"And if the being happens to be me?"

Two doubt her words, "Impossible! Your power is dark and brutal. You aren't a saviour!"

She twitched her whiskers in reacting to that insult, "Oh that hurts. Anyway since your mission had failed, you three must as well get back to your tribe and protect them. Won't that be the better option?"

"By the time we reached there, our village has already perished!" answered Three.

"Sigh…since you three are so desperate, I shall help you lots."

"What?" asked One.

"Goodbye."

She just had an inspiration that she can do more than cursing the opponents. She created at black portal below each of them. They croaked in horror and fell into the darkness. The portal then closed after them and the dark red fire vortex was extinguished.

"What did you do Miss Eterna?!" demanded Snover.

"I read their fear and able to see where their village is. I merely transported them there. Geez, they can just evacuate them out of the place then Hoopa will be unable to find them."

"Wow...impressive! And hmm…I don't know. Maybe they are too pressurised to think of other alternatives to save their clan. Oh yes! I need to heal Timburr!"

He went to Timburr side and placed a Revival Seed on his head. Soon enough, the seed disappeared and he woke up.

"Huh huh? What happened?" bewildered Timburr and he rubbed his head.

"You were knocked out cold Timburr." replied Snover.

"Oh shoot. I didn't see enemy's attack coming. So I assumed the situation was taken care off?"

"Yup. Let's go!"

They continued their journey on flight. Eterna wondered how many similar hills they had to go passed to finally reach the other forest. Also, since the frog ninjas could track them down easily, it would be best they made it to Blessing Forest before sunrise.

She had named her two new moves. For the dark red fire vortex was Torture Pillar and the warp portal was Abyss's Door. She just loved to give dark names for her unique moves. It was like she was fit to be a user of ominous power. She did imagine herself using light magic before in the human world, but it was just too good to be true to her since she never thought herself capable of saving humans.

After about two nights of constant 80km/h speed of flying, they saw tall trees ahead. They were much taller than Oddity Hills. There was also a lone tree far away outgrew any of them and the trunk reached above the clouds. There were levitating islands surrounding it as well. They were about to reach Blessing Forest! And luckily, the sun had not risen yet. While Aura just flew above Blessing Forest, Eterna felt that she had just entered an invisible thin sheet of jelly. It could be the barrier Timburr had mentioned before. Aura flew for a few more hours above the forest and then descent near the forest floor.

The forest floor was spectacular as well. There were bushes, vines with colourful bell-shaped flowers, fan-shaped funguses, enormous mushrooms and lamp-shaped flowers illuminating light. The tall trees were similar to Giant Sequoias. The only difference was that they bore sizable round nuts that tasted like sweet almond. They were so tall that the moonlight could barely passes through. Within the huge forest, there was no sound at all which made the place a little creepy.

The tree trunks were wide enough for Aura not to keep changing direction. Once they reached a big graphite rock, Aura allowed them to alight from her back. There was a hole and Eterna could spot pine leaves out of it on the ground.

Snover turned to Eterna and raised his arm directly at the rock hole, "Welcome to our Super Safe Temporary Home, a place that no one can bother us here!"

"Oooh." amazed Eterna.

"Haha. Does that really wowed you Eterna?" asked Timburr.

"Yeah! I have never seen anything like this before. But this giant rock protruding out of here is weird; like it came from space or something."

"It might be! So Miss Eterna, are you hungry? We been travelling almost non-stop to reach here."

Her stomach growled when she heard his words. Embarrassed, she muttered to herself, "Oops."

Snover chuckled, "Hahaha! Come in! I shall give you a nut to feast on!"

The group went inside their house and sure enough, Snover passed her a huge nut that is taller and bigger than her. Feeling that it would be a waste for not able to finish it, she insisted that the nut should be shared among themselves. They agreed and Timburr used his fist to smash the nut into pieces, and then they had their early breakfast. After that, they had a short nap on the floor covered with pine leaves till the sun had fully risen from the horizon.

Feeling refreshed, they decided it was time to finish the last stretch. The luminous lamp flowers stopped producing light as the sunlight managed to shine through the forest warmed the earth. Mist shrouded the forest and together with the sun beam gave it a holy feel. The scenery lightened Eterna's heart and her mind was cleared of thoughts.

They rode on Aura once more and it took flight above the trees. Eterna could finally have a clearer view of the huge lone tree ahead. The tree seemed to resemble Yggdrasil, a tree that connected the worlds, though this tree was shaped like a mushroom. There were four floating islands above the tree with vines connecting to each other. Aura theorised that the floating islands indicated the health of the tree. From the looks of it, the tree looked fine.

Even though the humongous tree was in view, it took them roughly four hours to reach there. At the base of the tree, they hopped out of Aura's back and seek the withered tree. Soon enough, they spotted it. The withered tree was short; about Eterna's human height. Timburr and Snover asked her to stroke the trunk. She did as she was told and the withered tree suddenly sprung to life.

_ "__Ah…you have arrived Eterna. Welcome to Nature's Grace. As promised, I shall bestow you a gift." _

A ball of light was created above it and flew towards Eterna. It scattered and entered her body. She felt a soothing warmth radiated from it.

_"__And it is done. Try it out in front of me."_

She concentrated on creating Inundation Flames at a distance and they appeared as usual. Then she tried to release the comforting warmth in her and it showed itself in form of multiple balls of light. They strike the flames and extinguished them immediately. Eterna was astounded that her cursed attack could be brought down easily from a light attack.

_ "__Ah, promising. It seems that you have strong positivity in you as well. The light you made depends on it. You can't combine your dark attacks with it as they will cancel each other out. And now you are ready to face The End. Alright, I need to go back to sleep once more. Is there anything you want to ask me Eterna?" _

"Yes I do. What happen to this place after three weeks?"

_"__My barrier won't last and everything will wither away. The big tree can survive a little longer, but when the floating islands crash onto the ground, it too will die and I will perish as well. I am sorry that I placed such a heavy burden on you Eterna."_

Eterna smiled, "Yes it is. It is a blessing that I have friends to count on. Together, we will defeat The End to save the land!"

_ "__Good to hear. Now go. It is quite a journey to the other end of this continent. I bless you that you can overcome all obstacles in your way and also trust in your abilities to make sure that everything will be right. Aura, Timburr and Snover, thank you for escorting her safety to me, I will reward you after the crisis is solved."_

"There's no need Xerneas. Our wish is to see you fully recovered after we defeated him." replied Timburr.

_"__Ah, what a pure response you have Timburr. Very well, I will show you my true form once I have my power back. But for now, I have to sleep. May the stars guide you all to the right path..."_

She stopped speaking and the air became silent except for the rusting of leaves. The group thanked Xerneas and made their way by flying further east to where Abundance Plains was.

* * *

><p>For the viewers out there, here is the map of the continent!<p>

art/PMD-Equilibrium-of-the-Opposites-505429768

Thank you for reading my fanfic!


	4. Unveiliing the Truth

**Chapter 4: Unveiling the Truth**

"So…they failed. Oh? They were in their village and begin evacuating their tribe. They actually believed what I said about what I would do to their clan? Well, I guess when disaster strikes, it will make any Pokémon worried about their love ones. And, Eterna is still not ready to face The End. I need to get her back."

Hoopa folded her arms. She saw everything using a crystal ball and she was not surprised that Team Hitoshirenu was not a match against Eterna. Right now she and her abductors were in a place she could not pry through and not even her foresight could work if anyone ventured in there.

To her, if Eterna managed to cross over Segment Ridge, it will be hard for her to catch her. However, since there was no one capable of retrieving her, she decided to trace her down. She put her crystal ball in the drawer and locked it using her esper power. Then, she wrote a note on her table to indicate she was gone looking for someone. After she had done what she needed to do, she created Hyperspace Hole to warp close to the group as possible.

Meanwhile, Chestnut was still at Oddity Hill. He had not rest at all as finding Eterna was his priority. He also lamented himself for letting her go since he said to the black figure that she was not his friend. He wanted to see her again and apologised for what he had done.

Running through the tightly clustered forest was proved to be difficult. He had to take the southern route to Abundance Plains due to barrier around Blessing Forest. He knew he was far away from Eterna judging by the pace he is now and wished he could just _woosh_ himself to her side.

In a while later, he spotted an Inventory Box. He could not believe his luck for finding one. Oddity Hill Mystery Dungeon had multiple entrances due to sheer number of the hills, so for each entrance, there would be a box. He browsed the contents of his storage space and took out a Reunion Cape. It would only work if the user was close to another Pokémon he or she would want to teleport to. He put on the cape and hoped that it would work. In a blink of an eye, he found himself sitting on a black 'thing' and three Pokémons were astonished to see him.

"Chestnut!?" asked Eterna.

He wrapped his arms around her and said, "Eterna! I am so sorry that I left you! I was too shaken to save you from the black figure!"

"It should be me who need to apologise to you for attempting to attack you. By the way, how did you manage to warp here? This area is protected!"

"It is definitely a Reunion Cape. It can bypass the barrier put up by Xerneas. Your relationship with Chestnut proves to be strong Eterna." answered Timburr.

Chestnut nodded, "Yes. Luckily I found an Inventory Box so I retrieved this item and hope I can reach you. Oh yes! Eterna, you need to come back to Horizon Town!"

"No can do Chestnut, I have a mission to do. And you should know what it is already. Why must I waste precious time returning to Horizon Town?"

"Mistress Hoopa has plans for you before you face The End."

"So?

"She knows the best way to defeat him! Don't you want to know?

"I already have the power to defeat him, and there is no other way then to head to where he is. I thought you are smarter than that…"

Aura abruptly shape-shifted a soundproof box to trap Chestnut inside.

"What are you doing Aura?" she exclaimed.

"I sensed something in his head. It could be somebody mind-controls him and should he continued to be with us, that Pokémon can find us. It is most likely done by Hoopa."

"Oh. No wonder why he is acting so strange. So what are you going to do?"

"I am trying to break the spell, but it proves to be too strong for me. Eterna, you should do it. You could read minds using the power of yours so you should be able to remove it."

"I shall try…But interfering with his mind could prove dangerous I think."

"Miss Eterna, Just do what you can. Should anything go wrong, we will help." reassured Snover.

"I will try. Just…don't shock me okay?"

Aura released Chestnut. Before he could complain, Eterna asked him to relax, "Don't worry about it and close your eyes."

"Okay?" he replied.

She created Inundation Flames to quickly seek the thing that influenced his thought. As she expected, Chestnut immediately retaliated. Timburr and Snover pinned him down and too suffered along with him.

"Bear with it guys! I will try to end this quick!" she said.

In a matter of seconds, she discovered it. It was in a form of a purple mist moving around in his collected thoughts. Now she planned on how she could remove it. She dared not to use her curse power as Chestnut was already suffering, so she tried to use the power of light. She visualised a ball of light wiped out the purple mist. It appeared as she expected and the light ball shone to destroy the mist. After that, she quickly removed her attacks and took a few gulps of air to calm herself. Chestnut, Timburr and Snover were relieved that their torments had ended.

"I…never want to be in this flame again…" mentioned Snover.

"Me too. Who can resist this kind of attack?" panted Timburr.

Chestnut agreed, "Now I know the extent of her power. It makes me want to puke...but thank you Eterna. It was shameful of me of not to realise that I was under Mistress Hoopa's spell, but why? She took care of me ever since my…"

Eterna interrupted so that he would not need to mention his tragic past, "We aren't clear of her intentions, but I can say I don't want to meet her along the way."

"If you put it this way...Since I am here, I must as well join in your adventure. I will probably be punished on my way back home. Besides, I may know Mistress Hoopa's moves."

"Such as?"

"She can teleport to a Pokémon she had set her sights on."

"Oh no. Now there is a probability we might encounter her. We should prepare for attack." said Timburr.

"She is hard to beat. She can read our minds as well so she knows how to avoid our attacks. And she can render our items useless using Magic Room."

Eterna spoke, "You sure know a lot Chestnut."

"I saw her using this strategy on some goons before. She is not to be trifle with."

"I guess is might over cheating then! We will know what to do when the time comes." laughed Snover.

"Yeah. It is most likely Aura and Eterna do the attacking while we just hide ourselves from mind control." frowned Timburr.

In a couple of hours, they were above Abundance Plains. This was the only area without mystery dungeons. The grassland was full of grass grazing Pokémons, way more than Eterna and Chestnut had encountered during their travels to Horizon Town. And when there were grazers, there were predators as well. Eterna saw a Diggersby being pinned down by Staraptor. The bird used his talon to pierce through the throat of the huge rabbit. It struggled momentarily then it died. She had no comments of the scene since she had seen life and death everyday by watching animal documentary. Nevertheless, she knew if she had seen death in front of her, she would react differently. She wished she would not see this happen to her friends.

And as what Chestnut had mentioned, Hoopa suddenly appeared in front of them. Hoopa looked concerned when facing at Eterna. She moved forward but Aura put up a shield to block her.

"We meet again black _beast_. This name suits you better for abducting Eterna and Chestnut! I know you won't back down from a fight so why don't I…"

Eterna instinctively leap off Aura's back, a move that she would regret later but she could not let her mind-control her friends. Aura understood Eterna's planning and made a small opening for her to exit the barrier. Then it continued to put up the barrier while flying off somewhere. Hoopa was astounded of Eterna's daring attempt and gave chase to her. As she was about to grab her, Eterna used Flamethrower to drive her off. Then she created Abyss's Door to warp herself onto the ground.

Hoopa landed beside her impressed, "What a stunning display you did Eterna. Tell me, why do you decide to follow those Pokémons?"

Eterna replied with a hint of anger, "Simple. I trust them more than you."

"But why? Isn't I am more trustworthy than them?"

"Don't use that tone at me Hoopa! You told the ninja frogs that you will destroy their village if they fail in their mission and mind-controlled Chestnut! Just what are you planning huh!?"

"I see. You think I am a villain. Make no mistake; I only said that to Team Hitoshirenu so that they will not slack in their jobs. I need them to be well-trained enough to get you back to safely, but it seems my foresight had failed and you managed to drive them off. As for Chestnut, indeed I had mind-controlled him to try to get you back to the Horizon Town. I am doing all these just to make sure you don't head to your doom while you are still learning to cope with your power, or _powers_."

"So you know everything huh? And, I don't agree to your methods of forcing Pokémons to do your bidding just to catch me. Talking to you is a waste of time. Bye." she created Abyss's Door and was about to leave the area.

Hoopa raised her right hand, "Wait, don't you want to know more why I don't want you to go and fight The End in your current condition?"

Eterna eyed at her and replied, "Speak."

"The End is a being of ending lives. Currently your powers are negativity and light, but they aren't enough to put him down. He can drain your life even before you battle!"

"So? You have a better suggestion?"

"I know a way to prevent him from doing so. It is summoning a great creature that he fears. I can teach you, but I cannot teach you here."

"So…why can't you teach me here?"

"The town is protected from The End's effect so he will not know its presence. Since you have been out here for long, he knows about your arrival and your quest to defeat him. But don't you find it strange he didn't come and defeat you himself? That means he was letting you feel that you have a chance to win and then he just plummeted you!"

"Hmmm, I am worried about my own life going against an uber like him. But, I will figure out a way to defeat him. I am _really _want go away now."

Hoopa was getting irritated, "Eterna, I will bring you back to town no matter what."

After her speech, she threw multiple Shadow Balls at Eterna. Eterna closed the Abyss's Door and did not bother to dodge. She conjured a Light Screen to reflect the attacks. Hoopa then used Hyperspace Hole and warped beside Eterna. She grabbed her and attempted to warp away, but Eterna covered herself in Inundation Flames to shake her off. Successful, she created light balls, or Shining Spheres and directed them at Hoopa. Hoopa countered by using Psychic to bounce back the attack to her. Eterna was too slow to avoid and got hit by them. Her Light Screen was shattered by her loss of concentration and the light had drastically weakened her dark power.

"Now you know how unprepared you are for a battle that is way more harsh than this!" warned Hoopa.

Eterna gasped with determination, "I…will not back down since I have progressed this far…further than what I was in my world!"

A strong light radiated from her and scattered in a form of a wave. Even though she could read her thoughts, Hoopa did not expect this powerful attack from Eterna as it came from a surge of power that was not controlled by her. She tried to escape using Hyperspace Hole, but she could not outrun the speed of light bathing her in warmth with extreme stinging sensation because she was a Ghost type. She screamed in pain and unable to move as this attack immobilised her as well. Seeing this as her chance, Eterna emitted more of her light power directed at her. Her light attracted many Pokémons to watch what was going on and once the light disappeared, they saw the conclusion: Hoopa had fainted.

Eterna was exhausted from using a powerful attack she called Purity Swirl. Seeing that so many Pokémons at the scene looking at her and Hoopa, she frantically used Abyss's Door to warp her to where Aura and the others were.

She exited the portal and landed on Snover unintentionally. Snover yelped in response of a sudden weight on his head.

She apologised frantically, "Ah! I am so sorry Snover!"

"Omph! Just…get off my head Miss Eterna."

She did so and drooped on Aura's back.

"So how is it?" questioned Timburr.

"I defeated her using a new move. It is powerful and should not be used often as I have to use a lot of energy for this. Now I want to sleep. I will tell you all the rest later."

"It is a long journey to the mountains so take your time and rest well Eterna." said Chestnut.

Eterna nodded and snoozed away. As for Aura, she lowered the barrier and increased her speed to try to get closer to the mountains as possible.

It was sunset. Judging by not able to see Segment Ridge meant that they had a lot more to go to reach there. Timburr decided they should rest for the night to allow Aura to recover her energy and let Eterna to have an undisturbed rest.

Aura descended near a lone tree that looked like a raintree. They managed to land a spot that was a distance away from grazer Pokémons migrating on Abundance Plains. They gathered food and made grass beds. As the temperature plummeted, Eterna woke up as she could not stand the cold. She was too used to live in tropical weather.

"Bueeeeeeeeeeeew! Why there's no fire yet?" she flared up to warm the air.

"I thought Fire Pokémons are resistance to cold." said Chestnut.

"Well, I am not exactly a fire type am I?"

"True haha. So yeah, will you continue talking about your encounter with Mistress Hoopa?"

"She mentioned that there was a creature that can be summoned and The End fears it. She wanted to teach me, but why would I want to learn this move in the safety of her zone? She shrouded Horizon Town with her barrier to prevent The End from prying."

"There is no way we can find the place it lives unless she told you so, however I it is best that we don't waste time with her. We must continue our way to where The End lives." suggested Timburr.

"We will be alright even without the summoned Pokémon!" cheered Snover.

Eterna looked up at the sky, "I hope so. Well Hoopa was knocked out so she won't bother us for a while."

They had their dinner. Eterna wondered why Aura could eat and 'digested' the food. The black figure explained that the food simply turned into energy that she could use to regenerate her energy.

They rested for the night. Unbeknownst to them, a being crept close to them and took Eterna away.


	5. Trump in Oneself

**Chapter 5: Trump in Oneself**

Eterna was rolling on something soft and warm. It did not feel like a grass bed at all. She shook herself awake and found herself in a similar house. Flowers along the rectangular window, floor carpeted with straw mats, and the dancing fire illuminating the room. She did not believe where she was right now.

_"__This house belongs to…" _

"Exactly. I have brought you back here."

With distaste in her mouth, Eterna did not need to turn her back to know that the Pokémon was Hoopa.

"Eterna, I know you are displeased that I brought you here, but I want you to calm down. You can warp back to your friends after I have taught you the summoning chant."

Eterna took a deep breath to face her and replied dully, "Whatever. Tell me since it is sleeping time anyway."

Hoopa smiled, "At last you are willing to listen. I shall tell you about the Pokémon you will summon. It is a flightless dragon called The Null that acts as a 'lecturer' of The Bringer of Life and The End. Should the balance between life and death topples, he will disable their abilities until they learn their lesson. Of course by doing so, Nature would be freed from binding from The Bringer of Life and disaster will surely follow. One time The Null disabled The Bringer of Life's ability for manipulating Nature to create too much abundance for the land for a long time that Nature nearly destroyed this whole continent with floods and volcanic eruptions. Blaming himself for the catastrophe, he decided to seal himself instead and let The Bringer of Life and The End to manage on their own without him. He taught a Pokémon that could live as long as them a move to wake him up to guide him to stop the two from making mistakes. Then he went into a deep slumber."

"Okay…where is he and how do I summon him?"

"He is sealed in Crystal Luminous and that place was protected by an exceptional Pokémon. If you have gone passed Segment Ridge, you will be stuck in The End's realm and the only way to end it is to defeat him. That is why I need to teach you before you go across the mountain. To summon him, you need to face a huge crystal that glows in the dark and shatter it using Spirit Linkage. Spirit Linkage is different from mind reading. You have to make your spirit wander and touch his spirit."

"Huh?"

"Complicated isn't it? Allow me to demonstrate."

She stood still, closed her eyes and relaxed. Eterna saw nothing for a few minutes until she felt something stirring within her. Then the feeling of intrusion disappeared.

Hoopa opened her eyes and said, "That's it. You can feel something entering you right? That is my spirit touching yours. It is intriguing that a ghost type like me able to do this though."

Eterna looked at Hoopa and feeling puzzled, "Yeah. But how do I do it then?"

"Close your eyes and clear your mind. Then visualise that you are moving out of your body. This practice can take weeks to master, but I am sure you are able grasp it easily due to your curse power."

"Hmmm."

Eterna shut her eyes and relaxed as told. She emptied her mind and found a different sensation around her. Cool breeze blowing gently on her skin and crackling sounds from the dancing fires. She can even hear herself breathing. After calming herself, she tried to make herself feeling afloat. In a matter of minutes, she felt she had escape the clutches of darkness and when she finally opened her eyes, she found herself floating in the air and saw her body and Hoopa were below her.

_ "__I did it so quick? Wow."_ she thought.

She tried talking to Hoopa but she did not even react, and she wondered why. She gave up trying and flew around her body and Hoopa, enjoying the feel of flying in the air all by herself until 'something' weighted her down. She turned around and saw dark aura wrapping around her hind legs. Hoopa did not seem to be horrified means this black aura was only Eterna could see. The dark aura slowly dragged her back into her body. In the midst of struggling to break free, an idea struck her.

_"__It was similar to the first time before I lost myself…Hold on, this is a chance I can finally tame this dark power of mine!"_

She ounce her every strength she got and her drive turned into a protection of light piercing through the black aura, thus freeing her from its grasped. Eterna did not know that the light power was within her when she 'spirited away' herself. The black aura squirmed, moving back and forth trying to avoid the light beams hurting it. Eterna moved in closer to the dark aura and did another light beams on it. It eventually gave in and retreated back into her body, but she used light as a lasso and pulled it out to speak to it.

_"__Even though I fear you, you are still part of me. However, taking over my body because I am weak mentally doesn't mean you are stronger than me; you just want to protect me by making others suffer for hurting me. Be at ease and let me show you why there are things that death does not interfere even it may seem unfair." _

For a moment, she felt that the black aura had replied to her with a hint of happiness that she had grown tougher than what 'he' was. Eterna was that she managed to seduce it and they returned back to her body. She jerked and her heart resumed beating again.

"Eterna! Are you alright? You shouldn't be a spirit for too long as The Ones in the Sky will think that you have died and will come to retrieve you!" concerned Hoopa.

She gasped, "I'm…fine. I was…enjoying too much. And…I will remember that warning."

"Yes, you must not fool around with this skill. Now isn't my teachings are worthwhile for you?"

"Yeah yeah. Thank you Hoopa. You will not bug me anymore isn't it?"

"You are on your own now, our saviour. Now I have to protect my town diligently so do your best out there."

"Good."

Eterna warped away using Abyss's Door. Hoopa sighed to herself after she left and hoped that Eterna would succeed.

As for Eterna, she reunited with the group and lied on her grass bed. She had a feeling something was not right with Hoopa. Why did she need to summon the dragon when she could have done it herself? And if that so, she did not need to come to this world at all. Her excuse of the need to protect the town was more important than saving the world was an oddity itself for her.

But having another strong Pokémon by her side could boost the probability of defeating The End. But if Crystal Luminous was too far away from where they were heading, she might need to go there herself. She yawned from thinking too much and decided to talk to them once they woke up.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Choosing the Best Way to Save the Pokémons **

"Are you sure you wanna do this Eterna?"

Chestnut was concerned for Eterna attempting to investigate Crystal Luminous on her own. He wanted to follow her along but she refused, stating that she must went there by herself. She told them that the rest should continue their journey to Segment Ridge and once they reached there, they must wait for her to return. Timburr did asked Eterna why she did not use Abyss's Door to take her there. She answered that her move only worked with the place or Pokémon in her mind, or reading the Pokémon's mind for where the place or someone was. Since the group had not been there before, there was nothing for her to read their minds and so, she had to go there by herself. Making sure she was well prepared for the journey, Chestnut lent her his sling bag so that she could store vital items. The group said their goodbyes to her and she rode on Shadowable's fighter jet form and flew away to North-East direction based on what indicated on the map and a compass.

Shadowable was a move that worked like Aura's shape-shifting. It relied on Eterna's creativity. She found out she could do this technique after she was in terms of the dark power within her. She also named her new light move Malleaglow. It was the same as Shadowable's functionality. These two new moves might allow her to surprise the opponents but she preferred to use them as transportation.

She travelled about 300km/h since she was well-protected from winds by her semi-translucent cover and she even created a ventilator to circulate the air in the cockpit. There were no buttons and other gears in there. One setback about using Shadowable was she could not lose her concentration in keeping the form and adjusting trajectory. Eventually after an hour, she had to rest on land.

After many repeated processes of flight, resting and flying over some small settlements, she managed to stop at Twin Tail River. It had two rivers separated in quite a vast distance and just one of those rivers had the width longer than her country. The river sparkled under the afternoon sun and water type Pokémons swimming around in the slow moving currents. Eterna took a drink. The fresh water here was mildly sweet and cooling, which it tasted better than chlorine and fluoride infused tap water. Then she sat down and looked at a group of Basculins and Finneons moving their way upstream. They reminded her of always persevere to reach a goal. Eterna was pleased of herself as she had done many things here that she had dreamt of doing, and one thing was being brave in front of an attacker. Maybe it was because she had power, or she had friends by her side? It could be both to her and she treasured her newfound friends very much. She did not have one in her world as she seen people around her were too bitchy and untruthful. They only cared for themselves and would do anything to get what they want. The planet would be better off without them, or so she thought before but now she believed even in a slightness of chance that the humans would invent something that could save their precious world. That thought surprised her as it was the first time her she thought of saving them. It could be that having light power within her helping her counteracting against the negative thoughts. For that, she was thankful.

She distracted herself from thinking anymore of this by sniffing the riverside plants. There were plants looked edible such as the arrowhead and water spinach. She munched them off anyway since she could just heat up her stomach to break down the toxins. Feeling full, she continued her journey.

Evening, and moving passed another river meant that she was closer to her destination. Right now, the air was getting colder so she had no choice but to end her trip for the day. She landed on an evergreen forest's floor. The trees provided no protection against the chill so she created a small fire mixed with Inundation Flame to keep the fire going forever till she called it off.

The eerie night approaches. Pokémons in the night sung their songs in bellowing, croaking and hooting, though not as livelier as Oddity Hill's forest. She was used to noise so she was able to go into a deep sleep, unaware of other Pokémons came close to the mysterious dark red fire for warmth as well.

When Eterna sensed an increase in air temperature around her, she woke up. The sky was still dark so she wondered why she had awoken till she saw tight group of Pokémons huddled together around her fire. She did not know that her dark powers could really help the Pokémons. She let the fire burned on since it was a controlled fire that cannot spread due to the restriction she casted on Inundation Flame.

She headed up to the skies on Shadowable and checked her map using a Shining Sphere as reading light. She could see Segment Ridges at the far east of her. The moonlight illuminated the ice caps on the peaks and clouds, making the scene breath-taking. She used the mountains as an indicator that she was in a right track and she continued north. Even when she had travelled quite a well in the air, the sun had not risen yet. The north was further away from the equator so daylight and night time duration might varied. It could be winter season in the north right now. She was hungry now but she could not afford to wait any longer. She pressed on and about three hours into dawn, she spotted sparkles at the distance. As she got nearer to the sparkles, they revealed as crystals protruding up towards the sky. They were huge and colourful. Eterna was glad that she reached the place within twenty four hours, or maybe since she did not know how time moved in this world. The forest ended and a wide variety of crystals awaited her. Judging by their clear core, these crystals could fetch her a fortune in her world and maybe a hundred gram of this alien rock could make her a billionaire. But being rich had its downfall as there would be a greater risk of losing wealth with just a carelessness decision in investing. Even with that reasoning, she just could not stop desiring for lots of cash.

She went a little further to where a tight cluster of crystals were. That would most likely where the dragon was sleeping. When she could not see the ground because of the crystals building on top of each other, she stopped flying and walked around to find a crystal cave. She giggled to see her reflection got disarranged due to the surface of the crystals. As she moved in deeper, she heard a group of Pokémons murmuring. Sounded like trouble, she headed to that direction and saw a cluster of rock Pokémons with crystals bulging out of their body gathered around an unconscious Pokémon that looked similar to them, except it was pink big crystal on its head. The rock Pokémons did not notice Eterna until she went forward to see the pink Pokémon better.

"Who are you?" demanded one of them.

"My name is Eterna. I heard cries outside the cave so I wondered what is going on."

"Hi Miss Eterna, we are Carbinks. And our pink princess is Diancie. She has not been woken up for days. We just don't know what have happened to her. Are you able to help us?"

Eterna tilted her head at her left, "I don't know what I can do to help but maybe..."

She was excited as she was saving a royalty. She instinctively used Spirit Linkage and found Diancie's spirit wavering weakly in her body. It must be somebody must have hurt her using supernatural powers. Eterna then used Shining Spheres and introduced them into her body and hope they could heal her spirit. With a small spark, she saw her spirit gradually gaining in strength. Eterna was glad that her move worked and returned back into her body to face the puzzled Carbinks.

"Umm Miss Eterna, you were spaced out for a while. Is there something wrong?"

"Oh it is nothing. I think your princess is doing fine now."

Carbinks turned their attention to Diancie and were overjoyed to see her gaining consciousness.

"Ah…what happened?" she said.

"Princess Diancie! How are you feeling?" said the other Carbink.

"I am fine now. I remembered I got hit by something and then I blackout. This is unusual…I don't see any fissures in the crystal cave that may cause the crystal to break off, and my barrier should ward off hostility."

"We had checked the cave but we found no signs of intruders."

"Hmmm…I might have a clue of who had attacked me but now it is not the time to discuss about this." she levitated upright and looked at Eterna. "Thank you for saving me with your light little fox. But why are you in Crystal Luminous?"

"I am here looking for a sleeping dragon. Do you know where he is?" said Eterna.

Diancie was shocked. She took some time analysing Eterna before she replied, "I see. You are the one that Hoopa had predicted. You are Eterna isn't it? I see you have learnt how to summon him from her isn't it?"

Eterna nodded.

"Yes the situation is dire. The End is rampaging and The Null might be the key to stop it. However, I think it is better not to summon it."

"Why?"

"You already have great powers to resist The End's ability as you have light to hamper him and dark to protect you from any negativity attacks. As for The Null, he has the ability Aura Break. He can disable The Bringer of Life and The End abilities even if he is far away from them; not to mention that he can stop the user from using aura attacks, so your moves will be sealed as well. And even with The End's ability is disabled; he is still powerful enough to totally shave a mountain into half."

"Then why Hoopa insisted of asking me to summon him? Is it an assurance?"

"It could be the surest way of defeating The End as no Pokémon can go near him and attack. The alternative way is not having The Null with you and have your friends beside you that are protected from his ability. Follow me."

The whole group headed deeper in the cave till a big room of pink crystals. They sparkled very differently from other crystals. It was like they were made out of pink diamonds. Diancie pressed one of the switches and the crystal slotted out like a drawer. She took out what it seemed like a black bracelet with an unusual colourful sphere embedded in it.

She put it on Eterna's left front leg, "This is a Mega Bracelet. It allows you to let your friend to Mega Evolve. Not every Pokémon can mega evolve, and your friend must hold a Mega Stone to sync with your bracelet to achieve temporary powerful evolution. I will allow you to have a Mega Stone for your friend since we can make them again. What is its species name?"

"I am pretty sure his species name is Chespin."

"Ah! My follow Carbinks and I had just created a Mega Stone for that species. Now let me see…there! Here you go!"

Diancie showed Eterna a Mega Stone. It had green and black with peach colour in its inner core. She placed it in Chestnut's sling bag and said, "This is Chesnanite. Your friend must be in his final stage of evolution to use it. Also when he is in Mega Form, The End will be unable to drain his life power. Your friend will help you greatly in battle."

"Wow." Eterna was flabbergasted. "Do you have a Mega Stone for Timburr as well?"

"Oh. Unfortunately I don't. But he could use Health Orb to protect himself from status infliction."

"Oh, alright." she was disappointed.

"I have another advice for you. Go to Scald Lake if you have the time. It is in The End's territory but I know a friend of mine named Volcanion can teach you further about using light and dark powers together without cancelling each other out. His place is protected with his barrier to against The End's effect so that he won't know you are there."

"I will think about it. Thank you for your help Princess."

"No, I should thank you for willing to save our land. I wish all the best to you Eterna."

Diancie and her Carbinks said their farewells to Eterna as she waved at them while walking towards the entrance. Now Eterna must think carefully of her options. To her, able to save the Pokémons without many sacrifices was her ideal. She never considered giving up her own life to save others. But if many Pokémons could be saved if she forfeited her life, she might do it. But fear swelled in her as if she had done it so, her close ones in her home world would never see her again and the last thing she wanted to see was they committed suicide. She hoped that her absence for a week would not give them a mindset that she was never to be found again.

Now when she thought about it, reviving The Null could be the best choice as there would not many uncertainties of whether The End could be defeated and allowing other Pokémons to take him down. However his strength without his ability was still powerful enough to injure them, and might also ended their lives. Diancie's suggestion was more risky, but at least Eterna and her friends would be the only thing that The End would focus onto. She made her decision to go to Scald Lake to upgrade her skills. But before that, she needed to inform the others of her plan. She used Abyss's Door to warp to where her friends were. There was a drop in temperature and the lack of oxygen could mean that the group had finally reached Segment Ridge.

"Miss Eterna! You are back, again!" greeted Snover.

"Hey, don't steal my line Snover!" frowned Chestnut."

Eterna snickered, "Haha, this makes my day. Chestnut, here is your bag. Thank you for lending me."

Chestnut nodded when received his bag and continued arguing at Snover.

Timburr used this opportunity to ask her, "Welcome back Miss Eterna. So have you summoned The Null?"

"Nope. If I summoned him, I won't be able to warp back to here with him due to his ability impose on me, and even though TheEnd's ability is sealed, we will have trouble taking him down. And, I met Princess Diancie and I agree to her advice."

"So you mean…"

"Yup, we gonna beat the crap of The End ourselves!"

"Oh yes! That's what I wanna hear!" cheered Snover.

Timburr, "Well, we already dedicated to stop him ourselves. So should we head straight to his territory now?"

"I would like to go to Scald Lake to learn a new move."

"Hmmm. We might take four more days to reach there. Well it is worth the trip to know an additional skill."

"I can help to cut down the travelling time. I can use Shadowable and we can go there in about two days."

"If that's the case, we can even the load so that Aura could keep up with Eterna. I will ride with her." mentioned Chestnut.

"So that you can have her all by yourself?" smirked Snover.

"Snover!"

"I'm just joking haha! Anyway, we should go now. We can't rest here and there is nothing to eat."

Eterna created a black two sitter jet place and flew close for Chestnut to climb on. Once he was seated, Eterna closed the translucent lid and spoke to Aura, "Are you ready?"

Aura belted Timburr and Snover and covered them with a translucent lid as well so that they would not be flung around. It replied, "Ready."

They blasted off at around 270km/h. Eterna heard Chestnut screaming because of the sudden force applied to him due to speed. She giggled. Although she needed to concentrate of manipulating Shadowable, she thought that it was strange that her friends did not question her wearing a Mega Bracelet. Maybe it was because they were busy thinking of the best approach to reach that place.

The spent a night to fly over the mountains completely. What awaited them from the other side was a land of eeriness and barrenness. There seemed to be no other types except Dark and Ghost Pokémons. They wandered around the dead forests, and eating the tree barks and dried grass. Ghost Pokémons eating stuff did not work well with her but anything in Pokémon World did not make sense anyway.

Eterna knew that soon they would have nothing else to eat and forced to travel to the seashore for descent meals. Aura explained that if The End managed to break one of the mountains in Segment Ridge, Xerneas's territory would be done for. It was unknown why he had not destroyed one of them yet. Due to their hunger, they had no choice but to rest. They too had to feast on tree barks and dried grass. They tasted horrible; a strong bitterness and dry taste but at least the moisture infused in them from the mist made them bearable.

Even in the day, the mist remained but not so thick due to the lack of canopy preventing it from evaporating. The group noticed cloudless sky at distance. That was Immense Desert; a harsh place without visible water holes to drink. Timburr recommended that they should head South-East as there would be more dead florae for them to rest; and also able to get food near the sea. And also by going by that way, they would avoid the raging fire of Unearthly Domain. Eterna remembered that Hoopa mentioned that The End already knew of her existence, and would wait for her to face him. It was unlikely for a villain to wait for her, as being one would want to guarantee his success by moving all the obstacles in his path. She believed that The End could have another objective in mind for her.

They changed their direction in flight and moved as Timburr instructed. They arrived at the foot of Skyward Blocks two nights later. Skywards Blocks was gray in colour and most of the blocks were as tall as the mountains. No one knew how it existed but it was rumored to be one of the toughest mystery dungeons in the continent.

There was as Inventory Box for the group with the sling bags to change their items. Eterna wanted to have a sling bag, but so far none of the mystery dungeons provided one. Chestnut proposed that she could enter Skyward Blocks mystery dungeon to get one as usually the toughest dungeon will provide it. And she could keep it even she was defeated, but not the items she found. She sulked but she knew she would need one so that she could put her personal needs in there and not depending on them during combat. She told the group she would be back as soon as possible and entered the gray round portal to the dungeon.


	7. Mystery Foretold and the Darkness Within

**Chapter 7: Mystery Foretold and the Darkness Within**

There was nothing but darkness in this dungeon. The air was stagnant, and no other sounds can be heard except her breathing. She casted Shining Spheres and saw engravings on the walls of the only room of this floor. It was a poem without punctuations at the end of each sentences and the words were written in a way she could understand. It stated:

_At first there was Darkness_

_Then it gained consciousness_

_It created Light as its companion_

_And they were together as equals_

_As Light radiates, Darkness expands_

_But gradually in time, they were not the same_

_Light was losing its life_

_Before it disappeared, it gave Darkness hope_

_Darkness mourned for its death_

_In the midst of despair, New Light appeared_

_New light brought joy to Darkness_

_And they were together as equals once more_

After she had read it, a stairs appeared to lead her to another floor. There, a treasure chest was in the center of the room and another poem was written.

_One day, Darkness gave a gift to New Light_

_It was delighted and it opened it_

_To find that it was empty_

_But it understood the meaning of it_

_It embraced Darkness in happiness_

_And introduced to it a creation of Life_

She opened the treasure chest and found a sling bag she always wanted. She strapped it on her shoulder and admired the light brown colour of the bag with daisy flower design on the front pocket. Then, another stairs appeared and she had no choice but to move on. In the next room, there was just the poem. She read:

_New Light took the role of being giving Life to the realm _

_And Darkness helped by giving it a peaceful end_

_The cycle went on for finite times_

_One day, Darkness asked New Light whether it could create Life_

_New Light disagreed at first, but willing to let it try_

_Instead of light in Life, it created darkness_

_A contradictory to Life itself_

_Life that carried darkness could not live normally_

_As it could not die_

_And it lived painfully_

_Even in the pits of Netherworld_

_Feeling regret of what Darkness had done_

_It asked New Light for help_

_New Light took the role of Darkness_

_And gave the pitiful Life a proper rest_

A stairs appeared once more. Eterna was curious of what next poem could be and she made her way to the next room. This time it was lengthy than the previous one and it was something extraordinary.

_Darkness and New Light blessed Life that carried darkness_

_It was able to reborn anew as a female being_

_This time, she could live and die normally_

_Thanks to the rule of the world implemented by New Light_

_But one day, fate brought her into another world where strange creatures roamed_

_The female being had no choice but to awaken the darkness within her _

_To save the creatures from their doom_

_Knowing that she needed more help, New Light instructed one of her subjects _

_To give her the power of light to balance the darkness within her_

_And now holding the power of bright and blight_

_She wielded them to end the suffering of the creatures in the world they lived in_

Eterna was dumbfounded. She believed that the fourth poem was depicting her. She could not understand who wrote the poems and knew what was going on even before life was created. Also, the poems added more confusion of her existence. Was she really that special after all? Did her past self as a dragon was actually immortal so New Light intervened to end its life? Now she wondered if there was another stairs in the room, would the poem showed her future? But alias, only the Warp Tile appeared. That means she could exit the dungeon now.

Feeling disappointed, she stood on Warp Tile and warped out of the dungeon. She was backed with the group so she diminished her Shining Spheres so that they would not be blind by them. She was relieved that the sling bag she wanted was strapped around her. Chestnut, Timburr and Snover wasted no time and bombarded her with questions.

"So who beat you up then?" asked Snover.

"Nothing. I just saw poems for four levels."

"Poems? That is odd. I heard Pokémons stated they encountered many Ghost and Dark types at their final stage of evolution cornered them when they lit up the room. So why is it different for you?"

"No idea. The poems were stating the relationship of light and darkness. But the last poem intrigued me..."

"What is it?" asked Timburr.

"I can say that there are beings up there watching me and helping me along the way."

"If only they can do more than helping you; such as saving this world." said Chestnut.

She smiled a little, "If they do so, you lots will depend on them for your every need. And that will make you all not truly living at all."

"Hmmm. I agree. But sometimes we just can't accept the unfairness upon us." Chestnut looked at the dead forest and continued, "Well we should move on now. I don't want to be stuck in this place at night when the mist shrouded here. Those dark Pokémons can attack us easily. "

"And we shall." replied Aura.

During their flight, there were not a single village in sight. All there could see were the gloomy Pokémons moving around. They don't talk or fight with each other; they just do what they needed to survive. There was nothing lively about this place. They stopped peering down the Pokémons and looked for the sea ahead.

They reached the shore by evening. Eterna felt ominous when the sun set in an area where there were no vibrant life. To her, the sun was the only thing that brought joy to this miserable place. It might be the same for the other Pokémons as well. And seeing that they don't move to the Xerneas' territory meant that they had no other places to live.

Aura managed to snag a 35cm long Magikarp and placed it on the sand. It flopped around, looking nervously at the group staring at it. Snover was the first to speak.

"You know…I don't feel like eating this fish. I can satisfy myself by absorbing whatever nutrients left in the soil."

"Yeah, me too." agreed Chestnut.

"I eat fishes all the time, but this is the first time I see a fish with expression. I lose my appetite by just looking at it..." said Eterna.

"I thought you Pokémons want something good to eat, and this is the easiest I can catch." commented Aura.

"Hey, stop complaining. We had to eat something nutritious since we are already out of rations long time ago. We should eat it." demanded Timburr.

Eterna was disgusted, but she knew it was better not to keep eating yucky dried grass all the time, "Argh… I know. Oh man, this Pokémon is just too cute to be eaten…"

All of a sudden, Magikarp used Flail on Eterna's face that she almost felt her jaws dislocated. Rage swelled within her and she shot out a Flamethrower and instantly barbequed the red carp before it could cry out for the last time.

Eterna closed her eyes tightly and said with horror, "Oh crap…I just killed it..."

Snover and Chestnut were petrified of the sight as well.

On the other hand, Timburr knelt beside cooked Magikarp and prayed, "Sorry that we have to eat you Magikarp. Your body will provide us the strength we need." Then he faced Eterna, "Miss Eterna, since it is already barbequed, we should not waste it."

She screamed in her head, _"You heartless bastard! Why aren't you fazed? Oh."_ She saw Timburr wiped out some tears off his face. She replied to him softly, "Well…okay. I shall eat then."

Snover and Chesnut still insisted of using Ingrain to leech the nutrients out of the soil, so Eterna and Timburr, except Aura, ate the fish without a word. The white meat tasted sweet, milky and a little tough; almost taste like Pacific Cod. It would be a delicious meal if they stopped thinking of eating a Pokémon for the first time.

It took an hour to finish the fish and whatever was left behind, Aura absorbed them. Timburr knew that Snover and Chestnut needed more food so he grabbed the seaweeds growing on rocks, swung them to get rid of some of the salt water and passed them to Snover and Chestnut. They graciously took the seaweeds and munched them. Next, the group need freshwater. Snover sliced the dead tree trunk and craved it into two giant bowls and a plank. Timburr scooped the seawater using one of the bowls while Chesnut gathered the remains of what Snover had discarded when craving and lumped them together. Timburr also gathered rocks to place around the sliced wood. Then Timburr placed the bowl of seawater on the sliced wood and Chesnut put two long sticks in the sand out of harm way of the fire to add as support for the plank. The other bowl was placed at the lowest dip of the plank. Once they were done, Eterna exhaled string of fire to light up the sliced wood. They waited for the empty bowl to be filled with distilled water and to do so Timburr had to scoop another bowl of seawater so the distilled water in that bowl could be full. This process took almost an hour as the wooden plank did not add as a good collector of water vapour. But there were no smooth green leaves around so they had no choice but to stick to inefficient method.

They shared the distilled water among themselves. The light and the apparatus attracted a small group of four thirsty Mightyenas and a Poochyena. Eterna and her friends were willing to help and give them the remaining distilled water to drink. However, the dogs were still thirsty and doing another distillation would be testing their patience. All they could do was to wait for another bowl of distilled water.

Eventually, they got what they wanted and thanked the group for quenching their thirst. In return, they could lead them to a village for them to rest. It was situated somewhat near Unfathomable Cavern and that mystery dungeon was the only place that provided berries and seeds. Eterna had no doubt that it could be the only settlement in this part of the continent. They accepted the offer and Eterna suggested that they should travel on air. As usual, Chestnut was overly concerned for her.

"But how are you able to ferry all of them? They put a lot of strain in her head!"

"Still, it is faster to be in air than on ground isn't it? I don't want to eat another Pokémon again."

She was happy that she could at least overexert herself for someone. Living in a world of danger could be what she needed to trust herself more. Without further arguments, they moved on. Eterna chauffeured the dogs in her Shadowable's small commercial plane form. She belted them before taking off. She did not need to taxi on the ground since she could just levitated the plant into the air.

The leader of the pack directed her to where the village was. Aura carrying the rest was behind her. Because of the capacity of the plane, Eterna could only move it about 100km/h in the air. After five hours of night flight, the group finally spotted the lamp lights of the village. The village looked like the size of her town district and the houses were neatly in place by the side of the dirt road. Despite that, there were no guards and there were not much noise coming out of the houses. It was like the town folks had given up on living and awaiting their deaths. Mightyena, the leader of the pack told Eterna that he wanted the town folks to be lively again. If only they acknowledged a Pokémon worthy as a hero to bring down The End. Eterna did not reply. She knew too well if they knew there was a hero capable of bring The End down, their lives would be in danger as he could wipe them out.

The group landed at the entrance of the town. The entrance had two lamps lighting the worn out signboard stating 'Welcome to Mystical Hub'. The dog pack entered the town first to alert the village chief of the arrival of travellers. In a matter of minutes together with the pack of dogs, a Pokémon floated towards them. It looked like a stalk grew out of a pumpkin. Its leaves worked like hands. Despite the creepy look of the pumpkin as the main body, its small eyes and a wide smile of its face toned down its scary appearance.

"Hello," it spoke in a male tone, "welcome to my village Mystical Hub. My name is Gourgeist. Thank you for helping my fellow villagers. As you can see, the mood in this town is rather gloomy. No thanks to what The End had done to this land."

Timburr nodded, "Yes it is horrible. Mister Gourgeist, we have come quite a vast distance to reach here. Can we take a rest here?"

He smiled, "By all means, yes! Come, I shall lead you all to an empty house."

As they walked, Chestnut spoke to the rest of the group, "How long are we gonna rest here?"

Timburr answered, "As long as we want to. Won't be nice to have some beddings to sleep on once in a while? And we can top up our water and food supplies as well."

Snover stretched his arms and smiled, "Ah, it is nice to sleep in a house protected by winds, sun and rain. It is better that we are all rest up for the journey ahead; good for our body and mind."

"I agree." said Eterna. "It is my first time on an adventure and so I am the easiest to be burnt out."

They reached the empty house. The house was made up of wood and the wooden windows could only be closed by swinging inwards. In the interior of the house, the floor were covered in dried shred grass and smelled like tatami. At the left there was a huge basin of freshwater with some bowls placed beside it for drinking. There was a basket of seven berries at the right and a lamp was hanged at the center of the house. Gourgeist lit the lamp using Will-of-the Wisp so that the group would not have trouble putting their stuff on the floor. Eterna felt that the village chief had prepared these in anticipation of travellers visiting the place. She could not but help to ask him why.

"Mister Gourgeist, are these empty houses are always serviced or something? I didn't expect there are things in the house for our comfort."

"We have travellers come from Magica Settlement where the Magician Pokémons roam. They come here to rest and gather ingredients from Unfathomable Cavern to make potions and other sorcery items. And so, I instructed the villagers to clean and resupply the houses after the magicians left or every month. Alright! Enjoy your stay."

The group thanked him and the dog pack and entered the house once they had moved away. Snover was the first one to lie on the grassy floor and rolled all over. Eterna giggled at the sight of it and Timburr immediately stopped him for messing up. Eventually they settled in for the night and went into a deep sleep with the lamp light blown out. Aura did not need to sleep and kept on a constant lookout for dangers.

After an hour or so, it heard some commotions outside and listened to a female whispered something.

"Remember to put them into a trance state so that they will not wake up till we reach to Unearthly Domain. They must not be hurt at all cost."

That was enough to alert Aura of the danger they going to face. It instantly phased through the walls of the house and encountered a group of five Mismagiuses surprised of its appearance.

Aura spoke coldly, "Not when I'm around."

It lashed out a blast of black smoke at them. The ghost Pokémons managed to protect themselves using Safeguard and one of them entered the house. Aura chased after her but the rest pinned it down using Dazzling Gleam. It struggled under the light and trying its best to not be vaporise away. In desperation, it called its friends to wake up.

As for its friends, they were already casted under a spell by Mismagius and could not able to hear its voice. She used Psychic to carry the group out of the house and left the battle in her gang's hands. Aura would not give up and concentrated a little of its aura and sent it away to the direction of its friends were. There, it entered Eterna's body, and Aura hoped it was enough to break the spell.

However, it did not just break the spell. A huge gush of black aura emerged out of her. Mismagius who used Psychic to carry them stopped doing so and Chesnut, Timburr and Snover were dropped onto the ground, but only Eterna levitated and moved towards her. The ghost Pokémon was fearful and backed away from her, until Eterna's black aura formed into ropes and wrapped her up tightly. Then, she opened her eyes and they were beaming in red.

She spoke, "You dare to cast a spell on me when I was asleep? How cowardly! How about I show you my own?"

Her body changed into ash white in a flash. She read Mismagius's mind first and grinned maniacally. Then she lifted her right paw at her, saying, "Essence Lock."

A strong curse was imposed on the ghost and the black roped turned into her flaming containment. The flames even filtered any screams from her and when the flames went out, she became in a vegetable state and floated down onto the ground. The four other Mismagiuses were terrified and self-consciously weakened Dazzling Light; letting Aura had some time regenerating its power.

Eterna floated down at Mismagius side and said, "Well then, how is it like to have your spirit sealed? Enjoy till the end of your life haha!" Then she faced the other four, "Do you pesky ghosts want to suffer the same fate as her? If not, cease your light attacks."

They were shaken and ended their attacks.

She smiled, "Good. Now take your friend and leave."

Without a word, they quickly retrieved their friend and floated away. Once the gang were out of sight, she undid the curse she placed on their friend. Next, she moved to Aura and commented, "You have the guts to awaken me Aura. I could end you in your weaken state for robbing all my power during our first encounter, but not today."

Aura asked cautiously, "Eterna, is it really you?"

"Yes and no. What you did was you pulled out my darkest conscious of my mind which removes all my fear and morality. I can tell you truthfully that I do not feel any guilt from killing you. The only thing I hold back my action is I know you are important to me. And so, you must not awaken me again. Understand?"

Aura explained, "The situation called for it and I could only summoned your dark power within you."

"No matter how treacherous position we are in, do not do this again. I do not just curse any beings; I can instantly eliminate anyone as well. You don't want me to kill your friends aren't you?" She then looked at her sleeping friends. "Speaking of friends, maybe I should help them as well since now I am sane."

She shot a black flame at Chestnut, Timburr and Snover to remove the spell. They were giddy and sore from the fall and they opened their eyes and saw Eterna in her other form.

"Eterna?" appalled Chestnut. His body shivered at the sight of her as he reminisced what she had done in his hometown that time.

"And now," she continued, "drain my power again Aura before I change my mind in killing you all. Ah yes, I found out that fulgy pumpkin had sent those frill dressed ghosts after us. Do whatever you want with him."

Chestnut could not believe what he had heard, "Mister Gourgeist? What did he…"

Aura did as what Eterna requested and took all the power out of her. She had transformed back to her normal self and fainted on the ground. Chestnut, Timburr and Snover rushed to her. They demanded Aura to tell them why Eterna was in her other form once again and why the village chief was mentioned by her. Their loud words had woken some of the villagers and they opened the door to see what was going on. Aura had no choice but to tell its friends that they had to leave this place and it would reveal what had happened.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Unexpected Happenings in Both Sides of the Continent**

In Crystal Luminous' cave, Diancie was humming and busying creating Mega Stones with her fellow Carbinks. All of a sudden, she felt a sinister presence behind her. She turned around and saw Hoopa came out of her Hyperspace Hole and it closed immediately behind her.

"Diancie," asked Hoopa furiously, "why did you prevent Eterna from summoning The Null?"

Diancie simply replied, "Then what is the point for her to be summoned by Xerneas in the first place if Eterna awaken The Null and have her powers sealed? I believe Eterna is powerful enough to defeat The End."

"You don't understand. Yes there is a chance that she could defeat The End with her friends without The Null, but what comes after that is when The Null is needed to save us all."

"So why it is needed for him to be summoned then?"

"Something worse than the wrath of Nature will befall on us. All I saw is this continent will disappear…and nothing more."

Diancie gasped, "Is…this true…your vision showed you this?"

"Yes! And I have this again before I come here! Because of your interference, I have to prepare to protect Horizon Town from the face of this disaster! I knocked you out that time because I know you may say something to stop Eterna from summoning The Null. But I did not expect her to manage to wake you up."

Diancie was thinking, "_I knew it was you since you are the only ghost I allow to bypass my barrier, but I will let you off since the situation is dire._" Then she said, "You could summon The Null here, so why you refuse to do so?"

Hoopa dipped her head down, "I am already not qualified to summon him. You had seen what I had done before…and that is the reason why I am confine in this part of the continent."

Diancie hugged her, "Oh my friend, don't be too hard on yourself. And, put more faith in Eterna. She will do something to prevent the catastrophe from happening."

"I hope so Diancie…"

* * *

><p>It was daytime now and the group had not found a good place to rest yet. As Aura carried them on its back during the flight, it told Chestnut, Timburr and Snover the situation. Now they understood why Eterna had awoken and they did not comprehend why Gourgeist would do this to them, and how did he know that they would challenge The End. Chestnut concluded that since The End knew their presence and was getting fearful of them, he instructed the Pokémons to take them to his domain and he would defeat them himself. Timburr objected that not all Pokémons heard of this, such as Mightyenas and Poochyena group as they were helping them in goodwill. It could be that The End had some selected few that did the work for him.<p>

Eterna was still unconscious. No matter how many times the group tried to wake her up, they failed to do so. They hoped by finding a Chestnut Berry in Unfathomable Cavern would wake her up.

Aura found some tall graphite rocks surrounding a small patch of dried grass. It landed on the ground and insisted that they should rest here. The rocks blocked the morning sunrays from reaching the ground. It would take three more hours for the sun to align at the zenith point for them to be exposed to the rays. The group placed the slings bags on the ground first; then placed Eterna on Aura's body to keep her safe. They lied on the floor and snoozed away.

What they did not know was that Eterna was not exactly sleeping. She was trying to control the dark rage within her. It was different than her dark aura; this rage was actually her true self which fuelled the dark aura to do what it wanted. She knew that when Life carries darkness, aka the black dragon, it was not born with hatred. It was when it was utterly defeated by the King that it succumbed into one. And the hatred had passed on to her, waiting for the day it could torture any living being. She was impressed that she could control her rage that time, but the feeling when being in that form was just anger and it was hard to refrain herself from attacking. She feared that should she be awakened again, she would not care less about saving the world and maybe, the light within her would be her salvation and will end her.

She did not know how much the time had passed when she was concentrating. She decided to depend on her hunger to snap her out, and it did as her stomach growling shocked her to open her eyes. She looked around to find her friends sleeping within the shade of the tall rocks. Then she felt she was laying on something cooling. She turned her head and realised she was on Aura's belly.

Eterna conversed with it, "Uh…how long was I out?"

"Not that long. Well, you are in time for breakfast."

"Haha. Hey Aura, I do remember what I did in Horizon Town in that form, and you saved me. And then today, you had saved me again. I thank you for that, but please do remember what I had said to you before."

"I know. You have my word. Additionally, I think you should learn to break the spell even when you are asleep, bind or silence. Your light might be able to resist any dark magic."

"Yeah since The End has finally acted. Well, it is better than he's doing nothing! But first, is there anything to eat?"

Aura passed her sling bag to her. It was heavier than usual, maybe because her friends had put something inside. She opened it to see items floating in the colourful dimensional space. The dimensional space allowed forty-eight items in it no matter how big they are inside. She saw some Mago Berries floating around and used her right paw to pull one of them out of the bag; then she immediately chomped on it. Sweet tangy juice filled her mouth and she squirmed in joy.

Once Eterna noticed she was watched by Aura, she felt embarrassed, "Umm…haha, I am easily satisfied with just a delicious food. It is enough to make my day. Okay! Now I shall practice creating something to block spell attacks!"

Eterna closed her bag and faced at a rock. She closed her eyes and conjured a Shining Sphere behind her. Then she requested Aura to shoot a dark aura at it. It did as it told and once the black blob hit the light ball, a visible dome barrier was seen and the black blob disintegrated. Aura was astounded that she had created a wall that effectively nulled dark attack without her looking at it.

She opened her eyes and spoke to Aura, "Yes! I guess this is good enough. It can protect me or my friends from spell attacks even when I am sleeping! It will use its own energy to deflect them. That means it has limitations for it will vanish after there is no more energy available to use. I named this new move Divert Deviation. I guess the Joy Ribbon really helps me learning new skills."

Aura responded, "Impressive. I believe the more Shining Spheres being formed, the more frequent they can protect us from spells. But you do not need to protect me as spells only work on the living."

"Really? I guess that is good. Hmm…the dazzling light may prevents us from sleeping at night. I will need to hide the light balls in something." She tilted her head up at the sky, and then she looked at Aura and said, "Aura, are the Dark Type Pokémons born from darkness?"

"What I do know is that even though they can use dark powers; they are not born from darkness. I can feel their spirit not radiating any form of darkness in them."

"But what about The End?"

"I am not sure about him. I can only analyse him when I see him."

"Hmmm okay. Thanks for answering and providing me tips Aura."

"You are welcome Eterna."

Eterna could not find any more words to converse with it, but she felt apologetic for blaming Aura for awakening her that time. Still, it is better not to bring this topic anymore so she decided to stare at her sleeping friends.

Eventually, she grew bored of waiting for them to wake up that she played with her Shining Sphere and moving it back and forth like it was a firefly. She even moulded its shape differently but restricted to flame shape. However, she lost control and the light ball slammed on Chestnut and vanished. Chestnut who felt a sudden warmth in him jumped out and panted. He eyed at Eterna and said:

"Why did you disturb my sleep? It is rare that we can…huh?"

A bright light radiated out of him and he felt himself changing. When the light finally disappeared, he looked at himself and was stunned of his plumped hands and feet. He had evolved into his second stage!

He stuttered, "Wha…what!? How did I suddenly become this form? Eterna! Did you forcefully evolve me?"

"I don't know! I just accidentally rammed Shining Sphere on you!" Eterna was equally bewildered.

The commotion caused Snover and Timburr to awake. Their yawn was interrupted by being surprised of Chestnut's transformation.

"No way! You evolved without being in battle? I wish I could evolve now!" Snover cried foul.

"Snover was right. There is no way for a Pokémon to evolve unless an evolution item is introduced to it." mentioned Timburr.

"But I just evolved am I? I was hit by Eterna's light attack and poof, I became Quilladin!"

Timburr and Snover gazed at Eterna. She backed off from feeling a 'Can she do that?' vibe from them.

"If that is the case, can you try to evolve us as well Miss Eterna? I think we really need to power up for the challenges ahead." requested Timburr.

Eterna objected, "This is wrong! Isn't my light attack just works like a purify attack? It should not have forcefully evolved Chestnut!"

"Maybe that it is depending on your state of mind. You could have sub-consciously want Chestnut to evolve aren't you?" implied Aura.

Aura could be right. It was true that she had been dreaming of Chestnut evolving into his third stage so that she could Mega Evolve him.

She gave up arguing, "Argh, fine. I will try to do this for you two."

"Yay!" they cheered.

"Oh, I really miss my cute self." said Chestnut."

Snover laughed, "You aren't cute in heart Chestnut haha."

Chestnut glared at him.

Eterna intervened, "Ok stop it dudes, I gonna hit you with all I got!"

She psyched herself of wanting Timburr and Snover to evolve; then she created two Shining Spheres and tossed at them.

Nothing happened.

She did the process again but this time she thought the importance of their second stage forms in a difficult battle. The two Shining Spheres became flame shapes and they gave off a powerful vibe. She tossed those at them and it was a success; they had begun to evolve. In a flash of light, Timburr had evolved into Gurdurr and Snover evolved into Abomasnow. Gurdurr had a buff upper body and looked like there were veins popping out, while Abomasnow had more leaves and a beard. They looked at each other and danced in glee of their new forms.

Eterna took a sigh of relief and said, "Alright, it worked. So, should I address you two in different names or something? Your names are species name right?"

"Hmmm. Why don't you give us nicknames as a way of thanking you for fulfilling our selfish wish?" suggested Timburr.

"Hmm! You won't regret what I gonna name you both! How about Loggerhead for you and Ice Kacang for evolved Snover?"

"Uh…" Timburr did not like his as Loggerhead means slowpoke and he could feel that Chestnut was sniggering at him.

"What does my nickname means Miss Eterna?" questioned Abomasnow.

"It is an ice dessert in my country."

Ice Kacang happily replied, "Ooh! I like it! Thanks!"

"I guess I will accept this nickname of yours." said Loggerhead reluctantly.

Eterna grinned, "Okay! It is decided then! Well then, since we are awake, why don't we move on?"

Loggerhead nodded, "Yes we should. Unfathomable Cavern is not that far away from us if we go there by flight. We could do some training in the mystery dungeon as well."

They took off by riding on Aura's back. Eterna did not ride on her Shadowable as she wanted to conserve energy for conquering the dungeon and she would have to put her team cooperation skills to the test.


	9. A Twisting Turn of Events

**Chapter 9: A Twisting Turn of Events **

They arrived at the opaque portal to Unfathomable Cavern. The massive black cave opening allowed the seawater to rush in and out of the cave.

"Umm…the dungeon is not totally filled with seawater isn't it?" questioned Eterna.

Loggerhead replied, "The Mystery Dungeon layout might be different from what you see here. It is meant for all elemental type Pokémons to able to complete the dungeon."

"And without further ado, let's go!" excited Ice Kacang.

They entered and they arrived in a brightly lit floor with not much land area to walk on as the seawater covered most of the rooms. Water also dripped on the cave walls so the corridor was wet and slippery. Corals, seaweeds and barnacles can be found in the pools, which could be a haven for Water Type Pokémons. The rules of the dungeon allowed only four Pokémons. However, Aura was not a Pokémon so it could travel with the team.

Chestnut volunteered to be the leader of the team to prove that he was a better leader and making sure Eterna would not be knocked out of the dungeon once more. He investigated the room they were in and sure enough, a dozen of Explosion Tiles revealed themselves but they were too slow to activate due to his quick footing. The rest of the team avoided the traps and followed Chestnut into the corridor. There, three Malamars were in line ready to attack them. They seemed highly skilled as they used Psybeams without accidentally hitting each other. Chestnut managed to dodge, but not for Loggerhead and Ice Kacang and the attacks dealt some damage to them. Eterna was at the back with Aura leapt into action and used Flamethrower. The squids bounced the attack at her so she quickly used Light Screen to protect herself and her friends. Realised what the squids could do, Chestnut suggested they should go by another way as it was not easy dealing with three Psychic Pokémons at once. But after he mentioned about their type, a Malamar used Dark Pulse and repelled him onto the wall.

"Chestnut!" the rest cried.

He was able to get back up with a few bruises; however Aura could not stand by and used its dark aura to knock the squids back. To its surprise, they anchored themselves onto the ground and redirected its aura attack by to it. Aura was not hurt by its own attack but it could not do anything else to defeat them. The team then looked at Eterna, hinting her to do something about the Malamars. She acknowledged and since any physical or distance attacks were useless to them, she casted Inundation Flames under the opponents' feet and straight away, the Malamars were feeling noxious. They managed to levitate out of the flames and moved out of the group's sight. The team cheered as with Eterna around, the team was practically unstoppable.

They progressed till B30 and something interesting happened. They spotted three Delphoxes moving ahead of them in the corridor. They looked like possibly Eterna's final stage evolution. They rushed towards them and pleading them to stop. The trio turned around looking bewildered.

The leader responded in a feminine voice, "What is it you want Adventurers? Oh? A Fennekin! Why in all places that you are here?"

"Umm why you asked?" answered Eterna.

"We foxes live in Magica Settlement and only the adults like us can collect ingredients for making potions and other sorcery items."

"Ooh. Well I wasn't born in that town of yours so…"

She was astonished, "Hold on, did you say you weren't born in our island?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Are you by chance a visitor to our world?"

"Uh…what if I say yes?"

"We have a prophesy that a Pokémon that look like us will either bring salvation or apocalypse to our world. And so, that Pokémon must lead to the right path by us."

"Oh. I am sorry I am not the one you are talking about" she lied.

"But if that's the case, why are you doing here then?"

"Training, getting food and water."

"Hmmm. Well then, do you mind that we battle all of you in a room? It is rare to see other elemental types Pokémons here."

Eterna turned her head to her friends and they agreed, except Chestnut as he knew he would have a hard time battling against his weakness.

The leader clapped her hand and said, "Good! I shall lead you to a room that has no hidden traps on the floor."

They led them to a room surrounded by seawater. Then, they took out their wooden fireproofed wands and faced the team. As for Eterna's side, Loggerhead put on a bracelet on his left wrist and Ice Kacang put a stone in his hide. Eterna was looking closely at Logger bracelet and was astonished of what it was. She wondered where he got it.

"So are you all ready?" asked Leader Delphox.

"Bring it!" said Ice Kacang. Eterna did not know why he was hyped to fight three Fire Type Pokémons.

"Great!" She faced her teammates and said, "Now ladies, let's dance!"

They spurred Mystical Fires out of their wands and the attacks were heading towards Ice Kacang.

Ice Kacang smirked at them and showered the flames with Blizzard. The ice melted and extinguished the flames. The female foxes quickly retaliated with Fire Spins.

"Now!" Ice Kacang shouted at Loggerhead. Loggerhead raised his left arm and a blinding light came out of the bracelet and synchronised with Ice Kacang's stone. A powerful aura emerged out of it and shrouded Ice Kacang like a crystal ball. After it shattered, he came out in his new form: Mega Abomasnow.

He was shrouded in flames once he Mega Evolved, but the flames were extinguished due to his dense icy mist. He knelt on the ground and launched three giant Ice Shards at the foxes. The foxes countered by using their Psychic to repel the icy chunks, but they were unprepared for his powered up Blizzard and it swept them away onto the walls. They levitated to prevent them from soaking in water and conjured a Light Screen to temporary blocked Blizzard. Then one of them winked at him. It took some times for him to find out until it was too late. He was seduced by Delphox's Attract and now he could not bear to attack them! Eterna, Chestnut and Loggerhead just could not believe how simple minded he was.

"Miss Eterna," shouted Loggerhead, "you need to take down Delphox that used Attract! We males might be trouble if we catch their eyes!"

"Okay!" she acknowledged.

She used Flame Charge at the Light Screen to distract the foxes. Now they turned their attention to her and used Psychic to try to fling her, only to be blocked by Eterna's Light Screen. Then, she did something they did not expect, she used Malleaglow and transformed it into a white rock and slammed on top of them. They screamed, but they felt odd that they were not hurt at all. Instead, they felt their energy being restored.

Eterna facepawed as she forgot that her light powers are meant to heal or eradicate darkness. She promptly used her dark move this time and wrapped them using Shadowable. Leader Delphox halted Eterna from attacking any further.

"Stop. We can tell that you will win us."

Eterna was confused, "I haven't even hurt you all yet."

"The dark power of yours confirmed our suspicion. You are the fabled World Disequilibrium."

Again Eterna smacked herself in disbelief for she had fallen into their trap to use her power to in front of them. But that name she called her was kind of cool.

"So what are you three gonna do to me?"

"We have to bring you to our land. And since you are too powerful for us, forgive us for what we will do to you."

Eterna saw the foxes waving their wands in a manner that she knew she would be in deep trouble if they finished enchanting. She created Divert Deviation and once their spells were directed at her, they were destroyed.

"What!?" surprised Delphox.

Eterna spoke, "Now it is I who should be sorry of your outcome."

She created a huge Abyss's Door under their feet and unbind them. They fell with a yelp and then she immediately shut the portal. She sat on the ground, exhausted. She had warped them out of the dungeon and hoped they would not encounter them ever again. This was the only available choice she had as she did not used Inundation Flames to read their minds so she was not able to transfer them to their homeland. Ice Kacang on the other hand snapped out of infatuation and found out that Delphoxes had disappeared.

He asked, "Uh…so they are defeated?"

"Yeah, when you were deeply in love in one of them" smirked Chestnut.

Ice Kacang shook his head in disbelief and returned back to his normal form.

Meanwhile, Loggerhead approached Eterna and passed her an opened bottle of Max Elixir. She gulped the sweet yogurt-like drink and it fully recovered her energy.

He said, "Thank you Miss Eterna for saving us once more. And, you prove it to us that we need to have more training to deal with Psychic users."

"Yeah, they are a handful, so I depend on element of surprise to distract them. I don't think you need training for this; it all boils down to creativity."

Loggerhead scratched his head, "Well…Ice Kacang is good in creativity as well and with my smarts, we cover each other back exceptionally. Chestnut on the other hand likes to lead and being stubborn I guess?"

Eterna laughed, "Haha. He's just like my brother that is why I go along with him just fine. I like someone that points my mistake and overly concerns for me."

Chestnut strained his ears to listen to the conversation and argued, "I'm not stubborn! It is just that I know better than all of you."

"Yeah…" Eterna and Loggerhead sneered at him.

Chestnut coughed, "Ahem! Let's complete this dungeon then! We had lots of food and recovery items in our bags that we can deposit some in Inventory Box as reserves."

"Okay!" cheered the rest.

They made their way to B31. It was one big room but they stood on a small patch of land surrounded with deep seawater. All of a sudden, a shoal of twenty shiny Carvanhas emerged out of the water, glaring at them. Then they immediately shot Hydro Pumps directly at Eterna. Aura, Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang could not react fast enough to protect her, and so she was showered in cold water. She gasped and knelt down on the ground due to her body temperature suddenly decreased. Chestnut hastily took out Sunny Orb from his sling bag and threw it onto the ceiling. The light warmed up the room considerably, but Eterna was still shivering. Chestnut and Loggerhead had no choice but to hug her to warm her up using their body heat.

"Stay in there Eterna!" cried Chestnut.

"Argh…cold…"

Loggerhead shouted, "Aura and Ice Kacang, you all need to take the fishes down now!"

Ice Kacang was feeling the rage, "And that's what I intend to do!"

He launched many Razor Leaves at the fishes. They critical knocked out the front but the behind ones dived to avoid the attack. Aura then flushed them out of the water to allow him to attack them once more. In seconds, the shiny Carvanhas fainted and they were warped out of the dungeon. Aura and Ice Kacang then faced soaked Eterna and feeling helpless that they could not hug using their cold bodies as that would not do any good to her.

Eterna muttered, "Instead of hugging me…just let me shake the water off my fur?"

They gave her space and she violently shook the water off her fur and now she was like a puffy ball. Feeling warmer but her body was still in shocked of the sudden cold, she fainted and forced out of the dungeon.

When she woke up fully recovered due to the dungeon, she was dismayed to see the three Delphoxes waiting and straight away, they enchanted a binding spell on her before she could protect herself. She tried to break free, but her energy gradually sapped out of her. When they felt she was weakened enough, they used their wands to levitate her up and they made their way to their allies. They were awe to see Eterna and even bowed down to her. Eterna liked to be praised, but not being worshiped when she was wrapped up. And now, she wished that her friends could save her now.

And her wish was heard. She heard shouts from her friends. She summoned her last bit of strength to conjure a Shining Sphere behind her back and moved it towards her friends in mind. Good thing the other Delphoxes did not notice it. She hoped that it would lead her friends to her. Then, she was lulled in her dreamless sleep, not knowing what would happen to her after that.

* * *

><p>Hey readers. Thanks for the feedback. This chapter is posted too soon so I didn't check for mistakes properly. I do know I have problems with the fluidity of my stories but this story is definitely the better one of the two I made! I always make grammar and sentencing error and I can't find any problems with that; no thanks to my average grade for English (This is not my first language). I will not edit those parts that much if I find something is wrong so in the future, I will know what to improve on. Still, thank you for reading and please await for my next chapter!<p> 


	10. Acceptance

**Chapter 10: Acceptance**

It is sunset and Chestnut, Loggerhead, Ice Kacang and Aura kept on searching for Eterna. They did not know why she went. All of a sudden, a light ball approached Chestnut and it bobbed up and down; like it was signalling to him something. Then it flew away into the mist. The team chased after it and it stopped before a group of Delphoxes forming a big magic circle in a dead forest clearing and chanting. At the center was the unconscious Eterna being levitated above the ground. The team was horrified that she was Pokénapped and quickly leapt into action to knock down some Delphoxes from behind; destroying the formation of the magic circle. The foxes were fuming and attacked the team using Mystical Fires. Aura instinctively protected the team from the powerful combination attack. Also, it spotted five Delphoxes moving Eterna towards the east into the dead forest. It alerted its friends and so, Loggerhead Mega Evolved Ice Kacang and once Aura lowered down the barrier, the pine tree Pokémon blasted the foxes with Blizzard. Chestnut and Loggerhead used this chance to follow Shining Sphere that would lead them to Eterna and endured the blistering cold of Ice Kacang's attack.

The five foxes stopped at another forest opening. This time they managed to create the magic circle quicker. Chestnut and Loggerhead surprised them with their combination attack of Pin Needles and Rock Slide. Loggerhead's Rock Slide was created by him stomping on the ground. The force was transferred to where the foxes were and rocks erupted high up in the air. The five foxes stopped their chanting and used Psychic to push the rocks and pins towards Chestnut and Loggerhead. The duo evaded the reflected attacks and continued to use the same attacks to distract the foxes. Then one of the foxes knew their tactics and clung on to Eterna. She told the other four to buy her some time. They nodded and they did their best to prevent Chestnut and Loggerhead from coming any closer.

The duo noticed the change in their tactics and Chestnut used Switcher Orb on one of the four foxes and changed sides. That broke their attack formations and he was free to approach the fifth fox. By the time Chestnut reached there, Delphox had finished chanting within her conjured magic circle.

She smiled at him and said, "You are too late! Farewell!"

She warped away with Eterna by her side.

"No!" cried Chestnut. Again he had failed to protect Eterna once more. In desperation, he headed back to the four foxes and demanded them to take him to where she was; and of course, they would not help him. With their mission completed, they knocked him back using Psychic and fleed from battle. Loggerhead could not keep up with their speed and gave up chasing them. To him, tending to Chestnut was the wiser option.

As he offered him an Oran Berry, Chestnut brushed it away and lectured him, "Why didn't you chase them down? Now we cannot even rescue her!"

Loggerhead picked up the berry and put it back into his bag and replied, "There is no need to as her Shining Sphere is still here. That means she is alright."

"That is not what I meant! If they warped her to Magica Settlement, it is far away from where we are so it takes us probably two days to reach there by flight! Who knows what will happen before we arrive there!"

Before Loggerhead could response, Ice Kacang in his normal form and Aura managed to find them, but Ice Kacang was dismayed to see that Eterna was not there.

Loggerhead explained, "I wanted to say that we can use Reunion Cape to get to where she is now, though since the Delphoxes wanted to train her, we should give her some time to learn. But if Eterna's light ball beginning to dim, we will warp there at once."

"Argh! Why didn't I think of using the cape I have? I will go there now!" Chestnut had suddenly teleported away.

Loggerhead shook his head, "Oh well, he could use the cape earlier on but he did not have time to focus on Eterna. Even so, he will be in trouble just appearing there."

"So should warp there as well?" asked Ice Kacang.

"Yeah. To make sure he is safe."

* * *

><p>Eterna opened her eyes. Her view was still hazy due to the sleep spell gradually wearing off but she could feel she was on something soft. She shook her head to get rid of the spell quicker and was stunned by the sight that she was on a round mattress! It was covered with a brownish flower designs. And there was more in this clay house; a round transparent lamp with fire burning in it hanging on the center of the house, a wooden table and chair at the top left of her, a barrel of water and a bowl near the door. The wooden windows were made to slide and the floor was made up of smooth hardwood tiles.<p>

She got up and took a huge yawn. She peeked outside the window to find out that it was night time and there was no light in the houses except the one she was in. She got back up to the bed and tried to use her powers but she could not. She was not surprised that her powers were disabled. Nothing else to do, she pondered what would the foxes do to her here.

Without warning, Chestnut suddenly appeared in front of her, followed by the rest of her friends.

Chesnut hugged her, "Eterna! You are alright!"

"Omph! Spikey hug no more please, and when do you like to hug me?" Then she looked at Loggerhead and Ice Kacang and said, "Where is Aura?"

"I asked it to go towards Thorn Fortress so that we won't waste much time when we warped back to it." replied Loggerhead.

"Yeah! Actually we are here because of a certain _someone_." Ice Kacang narrowed eyed at Chestnut.

"Haha, I see. You know I could warp to where you lots were but I couldn't because of…oh?"

Her Shining Sphere appeared behind Ice Kacang and moved towards her.

"Oh! It is still here! Come on, break the binding spell."

The light ball entered her body and the group heard a magical echo of a chain shattered from her. Even though she was slightly hurt from the light, she was grinning.

She continued, "Hehehe. Now I am unsilenced from using my powers!"

"Is the seal was the reason you couldn't warp away?" questioned Chestnut.

"Yes, and now I can do whatever I want. But first, I shall hear what the foxes have to say tomorrow. I suggest you dudes go somewhere to hide now since they will not find you all easily in the dark. I will come to you all when I am done."

Loggerhead nodded, "Okay, we will find a place for our safety. Let's go."

Chestnut was disappointed, "Oh…okay."

Ice Kacang waved at her, "We shall see you soon then Miss Eterna!"

They went out of the house and he closed the door gently. Eterna could not help but smile as she did not expect them to come for her so soon. It was great having friends that she could depend on. Since it was still night time, she went back to sleep.

She was having such a good rest until someone banged on the house door to wake her up. It was morning now and she noticed that the fire in the lamp had extinguished. She eyed at the door and went back to bed, ignoring the banging. Then she heard whispers outside stating that maybe they had put powerful sleeping spell on her. Soon, one of them opened the door to find her 'sleeping' on the bed. It gave her a gentle nudge but she pretended not to stir. It had no choice but to carry her out into the opening. Eterna heard many conversations and mostly were directed at her. Then she heard the one who carried her spoke in a low tone to another Pokémon:

"Your queen, we tried to wake her up but she is still asleep."

"Hohoho. She is actually wide awake, aren't you _Miss_ _Eterna_?"

Eterna opened one eye at her. The queen was a Delphox as well. She held a long aged staff on her left and wore a golden crown on her head.

"Welcome to Magica Settlement Eterna. You may call me Queen Lilla and I am the ruler of this island. Though we are situated in The End's territory, we had elected a barrier to prevent him from prying and affecting us. I had foreseen you would arrive in this world and my foxes had brought you here by my request to help you to tame your powers. I am sorry that we have interrupted your journey to do what you need to do."

Eterna leapt out of the male Delphox. She looked up to her and replied, "Well Queen Lilla, I already knew how to control my powers. What else can you help me?"

"I believe you want to get rid your true self am I not?"

Eterna's eye widened. She was appalled that she knew that much about her.

"I guess I am right about this. We all have outer personalities and inner personalities. There are times we hate our true self but by hating ourselves, it will affect more of our outer personalities. As for you, your true self is holding immense negative power. It is not easy to keep it under control but I knew that you managed to do it recently with sheer force of trying not to harm your friends. I will help you to accept your true self so that you won't go insane."

Eterna tilted her head and said, "Hmm…okay. Must we start before breakfast?

"Unfortunately, yes. It is easier to go communicate with your true self this way. I shall lead you to the arena where my foxes will create a barrier to contain you as a safeguard for us. And I will remove your bindings."

They walked to a wide sandy field with elaborated blue magic circle drawn using an unknown substance to her. Eterna stood at the center of it and the other foxes surrounded her like a tight circle chanted to create a strong barrier. Then Queen Lilla tried to do the unbinding, only to realise there was nothing for her to break.

She was surprised, "Oh? How did you managed to…Oh well, you are free to do it now."

Eterna sat down on the ground and closed her eyes to seek the rage within her. It did not take her long to find it and allowed it to overwhelm her. She changed into what she called Obliterate Form and her body turned into white and her eyes were flashing red. The Inundation Flames appeared and surrounded her, and it was increasing its range quickly. Eterna's last logical thought was that she hoped that the barrier could resist her power.

The queen had been expecting this. She charged into the barrier and into the flames with the head of the staff facing at Eterna. The queen was too fast for her to react and she managed to land her staff on her forehead. The next thing Eterna knew, she was facing a huge seemingly endless black lake with starless sky.

She put her right paw into the water and felt a surge of rage entered her. She immediately retracted her paw out of the water and panted. She concluded the giant lake she was facing was a collection of hatred during her previous life's lifetime. Then she felt something within her telling her something. If she wanted to fully embrace her true self, she had to dive into the lake. To her astonishment, she felt no fear of doing it. She took a deep breath and jumped into the lake. The current pulled her into the light and she found herself in a place with floating islands and demons attacking a black dragon. She could not believe she was observing the Netherworld of the past.

The black dragon roared in pain as the winged humanoid demons managed to pierce their demon spears into its hide. It had no choice but to flee, but the leader of the demon gang sliced its wings, making him flightless.

"Hahaha! You shall die dragon! And then we sell your corpse for a fortune!"

"Argh! You will not!" the dragon shot a black flame at the leader, only to be shield off by his ally.

He raised his hands in supination position and sighed, "Give it up will ya? You are no match for our demon weapons. Our magic is more superior to you."

"Hoho? If that is the case…"

The dragon managed to chomp a demon and swallowed him. Then a black smoke emerged out of his snout. He laughed, "I see! You were all humans before but were banished in this realm, yet you all seek the power to kill other native creatures instead of redeeming yourself. Well well, I should be the one wiping you all up!"

With its power increased due to demon magic, he shot black flames with white tips and it penetrated the shield; consuming the leader. The other demons tried to rescue him, but their magic could not work this time.

He bellowed, "Hahaha! Your memories flowed into me! Oh how despicable humans are! Once I managed to get out of here, I swear I will make them extinct! Hahahaha!"

The increase in dark power allowed him to regenerate his body. Within minutes, he was able to fly again. He flew off and let the flames continued to spread. Eterna saw that the flames did not move like wildfire, instead they were moving towards a town in the distance to devour them. She closed her eyes and was disgusted of how the dragon had concluded that humans were sinful creatures. She had no doubt that she had thoughts of wiping them off, but that was probably due to the dragon's hatred influenced her. She knew better that there were humans doing anything they could to save the habitat by recycling and reducing their consumption needs. If only the world was free from something that fuelled greed in humans.

Then she thought to herself, _"Hold on, that's it! Why don't I remove the source of their evil? But how? I can't use my powers in my homeland isn't it? And even if I do manage to remove it, I worry the sanity of most of them. Well, if they learn to share, that shouldn't be a problem."_

Eventually, she was brought back to the surface of the lake. She realised that the lake had subsided a little and she could see something at other end of the lake. She swam across it using dog paddling stroke. She did not feel tired and resisting against the hatred entering her. Eventually, she arrived on a shore where the black dragon awaited.

It looked at Eterna and spoke, "You who bear my name and understood my pain and hatred, I am thankful of you. For a millennium, I only seen a few humans, and even read the memories of the human demons. Based on that, I rashly concluded that they were born evil; therefore they should not have roam on the face of the planet. But you have shown me that there are humans indeed capable saving the planet and making it a better place to live. It is just that the majority of them need guidance to do what is right for the world. Eradicating them will not solve anything for they may arrive in Netherworld and repeat the same mistake again. And so, the power of hatred I possess shall be renewed to become yours to utilise. And because of that, I shall disappear for good."

"You will disappear? Why?"

It explained, "I am your true self, but I still hold the resentment of the past. That means I am not exactly your real self and there is no way for the two of us live together for long without complication as our minds sharing the same soul. For some reason, someone allowed me to have my memories intact during the next soul cycle. But the catch is, I cannot interfere with the new bearer of the soul too much unless the bearer allows me to show up. I don't know why I am given this chance but maybe, it is for me to see the world in new light and I shouldn't be holding grudges on humans forever."

"This is complicated…"

"Indeed. Well we are _complicated_ after all." Then he stroked Eterna's head with his snout and continued, "I hope that you can use the power for the better good. If so, your world may allow you to use your powers. Well then, farewell Eterna!"

He vanished into white sparkles and they flew up into the sky. Then, a blinding light dazzled her and she woke up in the real world to find Queen Lilla looking at her exhausted and heard the applauses from the other fox Pokémons.

"So how is it Miss Eterna? It seems you managed to accept your true self and erased the hatred within. And also, you have taken a new form."

Eterna did not comprehend what she meant until she looked at herself having arms and wearing like a yellow dress with white fluffy sleeves. Her limbs are black and her tail was longer than before. She felt that her ears did not have much fluffiness but at least she could see behind her better. She had finally evolved!

She was jubilant of her evolution and said, "Oh I have hands! Finally, I can hold a bowl now! And yup, I can finally control my immense power from now on."

"Good to hear. You can channel your power better if you have a wand. I will inform the craftfox to make one for you. You can test it with your power later. For now, let's have breakfast shall we?"

The queen instructed the foxes to lower down the barrier and joined them for breakfast. They walked into the forest and they were other residents having their meals under the shade of the berry trees.

Eterna was puzzled of the appearance of the trees and asked Queen Lilla for answers, "Why the berry trees are still alive here?"

"The barrier shields us from The End's power; so that means plants and Pokémons can flourish well here. The barrier also protected the sea surrounding this area but only about 1km radius from the ends of the island."

"Oh! It is nice to see a vibrant life here than seeing only gloomy Pokémons and dead plants…"

"Indeed. If you managed to defeat The End, there will be more healthy Pokémons roaming there. The End has been draining the life force of Pokémons in his territory more than usual. That means that the Pokémons either than Ghost and Dark Types will die earlier than they live in Xerneas's territory so make sure you protect them from his ability. From what I can see, The End hasn't made a move of destroying Segment Ridge, but holding on to Xernea's power is enough to make Nature go violent in less than three weeks."

"What? My friends did not tell me that they feel weaker or anything!" replied Eterna.

"Life force, or life energy is not the same as your body generating energy or the aging of the body; it is your spirit. There is nothing to feel from your life force sapping away. Those who aren't affected by The End's ability can still die normally. There is no body that can contain the spirit energy for long, and thus this is the cycle of life." The queen then plucked a Cornn Berry for herself and a Bluk Berry for Eterna and continued, "I think this sweet berry is to your liking Miss Eterna."

"Thanks Queen Lilla. So what are we gonna do later?"

"I will be in my quarters so you can do whatever you want now. The craftfox will tell me when it is done."

"Okay. Thanks for the teachings Queen Lilla."

"You are welcome, though I should be thanking you for putting up with us. It is not pleasant for us to abduct you from your friends…"

Eterna smiled, "Oh well. I can go back to them soon anyway so it is not a big deal."

"If you say so…I am glad to hear it from you." the queen took a sigh of relief.

They had their breakfast and after Queen Lilla had left, Eterna made the effort the chat with the other Delphoxes. Usually she was shy to strangers but ever since she arrived here, she had been more courageous to speak to anyone. She also asked them why they worshipped her. One of them explained as firstly, she looked like their god. And secondly, her powers were god like tier and able to unbalance the power shift in the world. That was why she was called World Disequilibrium. And since they saw her Obliterate Form, they were overwhelmed in joy and willing to die under her hands. Eterna just could not understand how weird their religion could be as no one would like to die willing to her even if she was a god. Even so, addressing her as god was too privilege for her and no mortal could be a god at all.

Once she was done talking, she walked back towards the house she was in. She closed the door and extended her mind to search for her friends. They were in the woods in the south. She used Abyss's Door to warp to where they were. Upon arrival, she saw her friends were also having their berry breakfast and were surprised to see her suddenly appeared in front of them.

Ice Kacang spoke excitedly, "Miss Eterna? You have evolved!"

She boasted, "Yup! Now we are a team of evolved Pokémons!"

Chestnut swallowed his berry and said, "Does that mean your stay in this island is done?"

"Nope. I will receive a wand that enables me to channel my powers better soon. So how is the scenery here? Even though I was Pokénapped and had a rough start here, the liveliness in this place makes me not want to leave this place."

Loggerhead responded, "Yeah, it is splendid. I was told that about four months ago, there were plenty of greens in The End's territory as well."

"Hmm. I really need to knock some sense into that jerk. But I wonder why he isn't aiming to take over Xerneas's territory? And I believe he knows the consequences of Nature being uncontrolled by her isn't it?"

"Very likely he is aware of it. I don't know what his plan is but we need to stop him for killing even more lives on this land."

"Yeah. And dudes, when we leave this place, I need to put up a wall to protect all of you. The queen had told me that once we are in his realm, he has quickened his rate of absorption of your life energy. Being Mega Evolved can protect you from this but that's it. I am sorry that I found out about this recently…"

Her friends were flabbergasted.

"What?" exclaimed Chestnut, "How many years have we lost?"

Eterna swung her hands as a gesture for him to calm down and replied, "Don't fret! He might be able to give you back when I defeated him. If he doesn't, I will find a way."

"I didn't expect this to happen! The life drain part that is. But…I guess it is good that you found out about this and told us about it. Now we have to be more cautious of our journey. It will be tiring for you to keep putting up the barrier isn't it?"

"It doesn't matter. I will not let you all die unnaturally. Though I wonder since The End has been draining life energy, who wants to stay in his realm?"

Ice Kacang made his point, "I think that it isn't an issue if The End drains their life energy slowly and they can still die at old age. But of course, I guess this realm is more suited for Dark and Ghost Types."

Loggerhead continued, "As for Xerneas, she can create life but life can blossom on its own without her. In terms of roles, Xerneas has more than The End as she has to monitor Nature. Actually, I wonder why Worldcore let a Legendary controlling it while it should be happening naturally."

Eterna's eyes widened, "Worldcore? You mean this planet has a mind of its own?"

"Yes. It can grant a wish from a Pokémon as well, but it must be in good intention."

"This is the first time I heard how it." said Chestnut.

Ice Kacang answered, "This is because we come from another continent; and the entrance to Worldcore is there."

"Oh? No wonder you two were the species I didn't seen before."

Eterna was impressed, "This is so cool! If only my world has a mind of its own; then we humans won't be doing stupid things like clearing the best air condition of the world."

"Miss Eterna, we have been wanted to ask you this. Are there any Pokémons in your world?" asked Loggerhead.

Eterna instantly replied, "No. Why you ask?"

"This is weird. Maginvade said there are Pokémon in her world thanks to the effort done by Evil's Bane."

She was stunned, "Hold on. Does that mean alternate universe existed? My mind is blown now."

"Hmm…it seems like it."

"You know, maybe you two should not have told me this. Now I am hyped to visit an alternated world even though it can be a dream I will never be able to."

"We should bring you to Worldcore and ask whether it will let you!" suggested Ice Kacang.

"Haha thanks."

Chestnut said it otherwise, "I would want to go to your world instead Eterna."

"Chestnut, when do you suddenly pay so much attention to me?" She suddenly covered her mouth and continued to speak, "Oh…I'm sorry I said it abruptly. What I meant is it is too sudden to me that you umm…"

He blushed, "You know Eterna, I realised I care for you a lot ever since Aura took you away. I just want to be with you."

"Chestnut, I can be your friend but we cannot be together forever. You know that aren't you?"

He knew. But ever since he met her, he had grown to like her for her willingness to help her friends and being a little rebelling. She did not object to any suggestions, including him. Because of that, he could not stop worrying about her for facing many dangerous. She was forcefully pulled into this world and had to save to world was no easy task for visitor.

He waved his hands at her and stuttered, "Oh…I… I didn't mean of being together forever; I just want to be a friend that you can trust."

"Good, I'm okay with that." She smiled with a sad look on her face. "Well then, I shall warp back to the house. I will seek you all later. Bye!"

She went away and Chestnut did not understand why she was disheartened when he said so. As for Loggerhead and Ice Kacang, they petted his back to lighten him up.


	11. Dance, Trickery and Rumour

**Chapter 11: Dance, Trickery and Rumour **

"Miss Eterna, your wand is ready."

Eterna took her sling bag and opened the door to find the same Delphox that had carried her before. He was bowing down and extended his two hands with the wand on them. She took it and felt a warm sensation from it, probably due to the fox held it tightly.

She responded with glee, "Thanks Delphox!"

"I would like to escort you to the same arena as before to allow you to test your wand. Are you ready to come with me?"

"Sure! Let's go."

They were back to the magic circle arena. As usual, the same group of Delphoxes created a barrier around Eterna and Queen Lilla was there to watch her process.

The queen spoke, "Alright Miss Eterna. Try to conjure something out of the wand."

Eterna acknowledged and thought of a fire attack that she could manipulate easily. A small blue fire appeared at the tip of her wand and flew up in the air. It multiplied and the fire swirled around her. Eterna instantly recognised that her new move was Will-Of-The Wisp, but it seemed she had forgotten an old move as well.

"Splendid!" applauded the queen, "Now try to use a psychic attack."

Eterna thought, "_A psychic attack? Oh like what the group of foxes did to my friends. Hmm..._"

She cancelled her Will-of-the Wisp and focused on a small sand mount in front of her, visualised it being scattered away. Then, a purple ball appeared above the mount and exploded. This move was called Psyshock. Not only it could stun the opponent; it could deal more damage if its physical defence was weak. And again, she had forgotten another old move of hers. She could not help but to ask the queen about it.

"Queen Lilla, I felt that I have forgotten two old moves of mine when I learnt new ones. Why is that so?"

"Each Pokémon can only remember four move slots; well that is how the way it is. It doesn't apply to a Pokémon's speciality though."

"Ooh..." Eterna thought of her move pool and she now had Psyshock, Light Screen, Will-of-the-Wisp and Fire Spin. Her attacks were like trickery moves now.

The queen slammed her bottom tip of her staff on the ground and said, "Now, how about you go into your powered up form? You need to get used to the immense power inside you."

"Umm…okay."

She closed her eyes and released the curse power within her. Her body colour turned mostly black this time, only her shoulder fur, fluffy ears and her most of her tail were white, and her eyes remained glowing red. Being in this state made her feel fearless and boastful as usual, but without induced rage in her. She wanted to try new attacks without using the wand this time. She placed it in her furry tail and lit up her hands with Inundation Flames, and then she danced around and shot the flames at all angles by doing boxing style. She could even light up her feet and kicked the flames out of them. Good thing about dancing with the flames was that she could avoid attacks, protect and then delivered the curse flames at her opponents. The technique was similar to a move shown in her favourite animation. Next she used the wand. Using the wand might help her have better control of her attacks, with a limitation that she could not use powerful wide range ones. She swung the wand in circular motion towards the sky and five holes appeared in the air around her in random position shooting black beams. The beams did not cause an impact on the ground, instead they were meant to cause the opponent to feel weak for a while if the beam was able to envelop it. Happy of what she had done, Queen Lilla went into the barrier and lifted her staff at Eterna's direction and said:

"Good. Now it is time to train you to control your powered up form. I want you to able to land an attack on me without using too much power."

"Okay, you ask for it."

Eterna shelved her wand in her tail and lit up her hands and feet, known as Mania Dance. Then, she shifty ran towards the queen to punch her using her right hand. The queen blocked the attack, and even managed to avoid the flames from Eterna's free hand. Eterna tried to kick her using her left, but again the queen dodged. Eterna was getting ecstatic of fighting a strong opponent that she used Essence Lock on her. However, the spell merely broke one of her protective enchantment.

Eterna was frustrated, "Geez. You are really well prepared Queen Lilla."

"Of course. And Eterna, try not to let your arrogance get the better of you."

"Hmph."

She did not mean to reply rudely but the queen was right about her increase of egotism. Nonetheless, she used her wand to create Devoid Dominance, which were the five holes she did before. The queen was surrounded by her the attacks, so she pounded her staff on the ground to reveal a trench. She continued to dig her way to the surface and came out right behind Eterna. Eterna was prepared for that and swung her wand to control the beams to aim for the queen. The queen immediately ran and all the beams missed her. She also eyed at Eterna to see her next move.

Eterna sighed and cancelled Devoid Dominance and the flames from her limb ends and fiddled with her wand. The queen stopped running and looking at her bewildered.

"What's the matter?"

Eterna faced her and looking bored, "You have been avoiding all my attacks and you haven't even hit me once. This is retarded."

"I didn't say I will strike you down; I only asked you to attack me. But if you insist, I shall do it."

Queen Lilla raised her staff and chanting a spell. Eterna smirked as the queen was wide open and she used Shadowable to pin her on the ground.

She spoke, "I should have done that earlier huh; deceiving you." She then ceased her attack to release her.

The queen got up and replied, "That is smart tactic. Now you know that being powerful doesn't necessary mean you can win a battle. Alright, the training ends now. You can return back to your normal form Miss Eterna."

Eterna tried to seal her Obliteration Form, but she had no idea how to do it. Queen Lilla recognised the trouble and instructed Eterna to try to use light power to seduce her curse power.

Eterna refused. When she was in her normal form, the light introduced by Xerneas into her body balanced with her dark power. But since she was in her Obliteration Form, her unsealed power contained her light power. If she purposely released her light power, it might purify most of her unsealed power and endangering her life. Eterna tried to think of other ways and the only thought that came in her mind was to use all the power she had.

She told the Delphoxes that were maintaining the barrier to reinforce it to become even stronger for she was about to explode her power. The queen was hesitant, but she understood her for choosing the alternative solution. She joined in with the other foxes and strengthened the shield to have ten layers of protection. As doing this would drain their energy quickly, Eterna wasted no time and performed Retribution. Massive black flames gushed out of her body and pressed against the barrier. The first layer broke easily, followed the second and when it broke the eighth layer, the flames disintegrated and revealed Eterna in her normal form. She knelt on her knees in exhaustion. The Delphoxes were tired as well and they pulled down the barrier so that they could at least recover a little.

The queen spoke, "Whew…Miss Eterna, I advise you to find a _better_ way to return to your normal self. It is my deepest regret that I can't teach you how to utilise your light power to do so."

"Yeah…Point taken. And no worries, I will be seeking another teacher to help me to do so." replied Eterna.

"Oh I am relieved. Alright then, that is all I have to teach you. You are free to return back to your friends. I am aware that they _are_ nearby."

Eterna was surprised that she knew about that as well, "Ah! Uh…I shall make my move now. Thank you for teaching me Queen Lilla, and the foxes that helped me in my training as well."

The Delphoxes cheered for her gratitude.

The queen answered, "You are welcome. Feel free to drop by here when you are done with your journey. We will celebrate of your return!"

"Yes I will. And so…see ya!" she waved and the others did it as well.

She used her remaining strength to use Abyss's Door and warped away to her friends. This time, they were near a shallow lake. The lake was unusually clear and there were no fishes living in there. As expected, her friends greeted her upon her arrival.

"Welcome back Miss Eterna!" said Ice Kacang.

Eterna grinned but still panting, "Whew…yup. I did some practice using my wand just now."

"So is that a wand you are holding? Can I touch it?" asked Chestnut.

"Sure! Go ahead and play with it. In the meantime…"

She dived into the lake. That action of hers made her friends panicking.

Chestnut screamed, "What are you doing!? Isn't water is your weakness?"

She emerged out of the water and answered, "I am not weak to water, silly! I just can't take the sudden coldness of it. The lake water is cooling so I am fine with it."

Loggerhead scratched his head, "Huh what?"

"Why will I be suddenly weak to water just because I am a Fire Type? I have been swimming since I was a baby! And with the right technique, I can speed up my recovery for I pretty much exhausted from a training just now. Okay, here I go!"

Her furry coat dragged her down, but she managed to kick strong to keep her lower body afloat without hitting her tail. The group seen her swam slowly up and down the lake and were amazed of her swimming strokes. After ten laps of warming down, she got up and shook the water out of her fur. Then, she used Fire Spin to quickly dry her fur. Her fur puffed out, making her looked like a standing lion. Her friends could not stop laughing at her.

She argued, "Hey! If I have a towel, it will not need to resort to this method."

Chestnut was still chuckling, "Haha yeah. Anyway I have restocked the food supply for our journey. Do you need to do yours Eterna?"

"Hmm…let me check my sling bag."

She had Four Oran Berries, Two Mago Berries, three Revival Seeds, two Heal Seeds, two Max Elixirs and a Health Orb. Since she loved the berries here so much, she thought of maximising her bag with food. Ribbons and orbs were not important to her since she herself was like an emergency item that could aid others in need.

She questioned her friends, "Are there berries that can last for days without rotting?"

"There is one, but I am not sure whether you like the taste." he answered.

"Just show me what it is."

Chestnut led the team to a berry tree that had berries that were black with white exclamation designs. He plucked one of them and passed it to her. She smelt the berry and detected a strong spicy tang from it.

"So what is the name of this berry?"

"Enigma Berry. It is very rare. It only grows in high concentration of mana in the air. It is spicy and dry, but it is these factors that make this berry able to last three months without decaying. It is indeed the most puzzling berry in the world."

"You mean it has magic in it as well?"

"It is rumoured to have it. Well, I tried it but there is no effect at all."

Eterna looked at the berry with anxiety, bit a small chuck of it and swallowed it down. The spiciness stung her mouth and her throat which made her almost want to gag. But there was something special about it. She felt her dark power regenerating faster than usual. This berry could be the potion that she needed! She plucked all of them and put into her bag. Her friends just stared at her, confused.

"Why did you harvest all of them? Did they aid you in something?" asked Ice Kacang.

"Yeah! It can help me recover my lost energy! Hmm…maybe if I blend it with Max Elixir, it will be a wonderful drink!"

"Ooh! We can do this later at night."

"Hmm! Well you can have the rest of the berry Ice Kacang. I need to rinse my mouth to get rid of the spice bleh."

"Okay."

While Eterna was raising her mouth, Ice Kacang passed the berry to Loggerhead instead since his friend liked to eat spicy food. When Eterna was done, she used her hands trying to flatten her fur and addressed to the group.

"Okay, time to go back to travelling above the gloomy forest. Shall we go now?"

"Yes." they responded.

They entered the Abyss's Door and they were taken to where Aura was. Aura was pleased to find them back safe and sound; and it was astonished to find Eterna had evolved and of her conjuring Divert Deviation to protect themselves.

"We are back!" said Loggerhead to it.

"Welcome back, all of you. Why is there a need for a barrier?"

"Well…I just need to do this to protect us from invisible harm." answered Eterna

Aura thought that that was not the answer it was looking for but decided not to ponder about it. It spoke, "Alright. So should we continue our journey till nightfall? It is late afternoon now."

Chestnut agreed, "Yes we should. It would be better if we find a safe place beyond this treacherous place."

They rode on it and flew above Thorn Fortress. It was situated at the North-East of Unfathomable Cavern. Eterna found the name horrifying. If they were walking in there, it felt like going through a city of barb wire. The huge thorns were gray in colour; like a sculpture of some sort. This place had no Pokémons roaming around. Based on the looks of it, it seemed to hide something. After two hours of flight, she spotted something sparkling: a small golden thorn on the ground. She told Aura that she wanted to inspect it. It lowered near the ground for her to alight. Eterna walked closer to it and saw a black engraving that looked like a ring on the golden thorn. She wanted to touch it, but due to the influence of television shows she watched before indicate traps were usually placed near a treasure item. And her instincts warned her that there was something evil from it. She stepped back and climbed back on Aura's back.

Chestnut could not help but to question her, "So what is that golden thorn? It is weird for it to be guarded so tightly by the big gray thorns."

"I have no idea, but definitely not be trampled on." replied Eterna truthfully.

"Well…if you say so. It is similar in mystery dungeons. In some rooms with Deluxe Treasure Chest, there are Power Points Zero Tiles surrounding it. Once step on it, one of the moves you know will be disabled until you drink Max Elixir. That trap is such a pain in the butt."

Ice Kacang agreed, "Oh yeah. I don't like that trap at all, especially when my most powerful move was sealed in Shell Coast Mystery Dungeon."

Loggerhead speculated, "You know, I wonder if that golden thorn is a seal or something?"

The rest of the group gasped.

"You may be right! There is a marking on the thorn. It looks like a ring." she said.

Chestnut pondered, "A ring? Hmm…I heard a legend of a ring user terrorised this continent and almost caused the land to disappear."

"What!? Are you serious?" astonished Ice Kacang.

"Yes. And it is rumoured to be more powerful than The End."

"If this rumoured Pokémon is revived and is more powerful than Evil's Bane, I am not so sure whether we can even damage it at all." feared Loggerhead.

Eterna crossed her arms and nagged, "Oh what the heck, let's not think about this and move on!"

They agreed. There was no point speaking about the past and they should be worrying about the present. Aura took them to the sky once more and moved towards the north, and the sun set below the horizon in front of them.


	12. The Wielder of Two Conflicting Elements

**Chapter 12: The Wielder of Two Conflicting Elements **

As the gigantic thorns were everywhere, they carried on flying till they were over the dead trees. But there was something unusual at a distance; patches of green grass, some young trees and a huge flock of many Pokémons with different elemental types. They could not comprehend why until they reached there and felt that they had just moved passed a curtain.

"It seems that we had just entered a barrier." mentioned Aura.

"Does that mean we are near Scald Lake?" inquired Eterna.

Loggerhead replied, "It could be. Why don't we rest here for the night then?"

"Woohoo! We can try Eterna's blended drink for dinner" excited Ice Kacang.

They camped under the young Roseli Berry tree that was not fruiting yet. It produced a sweet white wine smell that could attract any Pokémons to come by. It could be the worse spot to rest but it was still better than resting in a creepy forest. Eterna could tailor her Divert Deviation to shine at any intruder to frighten them off. Nevertheless, the fragrance aroma from this berry tree could put the team in a much rested sleep.

Eterna took up an Enigma Berry from her sling bag and got a Max Elixir from Chestnut. Then she requested Ice Kacang to make a wooden bowl and a rounded block. He took down a tree nearby to make them; and that made Eterna realised she could have put the bowls in her bag so that she would not need him to take down a tree to make them. He finished the things she requested within minutes and passed them to her. She then put the berry in the bowl and using his leaf to slice the berry into smaller chucks. She pounded them using the rounded block till they became a paste and added Max Elixir in it. Now she used the rounded block to stir the mixture until it became a like a smoothie. She tasted it and she squirmed in delight. The spiciness was tone down but it still complemented the Max Elixir's yogurt taste well. She passed the bowl to her friends to try it out. They tried it and agreed that the taste was superb. Eterna was glad that her blending skills could delight her friends.

As the smoothie was not enough to fill up their tummies, they gathered berries nearby and ate them. The berries here were juicy which that proved that the area here had sufficient rainfall. And after that, they slept on the grass after Eterna had hidden the Shining Spheres. She was stunned that once she closed her eyes, she went into a dream world of pure white and a figure in the middle. There, Xerneas in her wittered tree form spoke to her.

"_Hello Eterna, I have something to tell you. You may wonder how I manage to sustain myself for so long with the little power I have. What I do is absorbing the nutrients from the ground, like what a plant does. However, I can do no more or else the trees around me will die and that will contradict the role I am given by My Father."_

"How many more days can you endure then?"

_ "__Maybe a week more. I am sorry that I have to rush you, but I know that it is best for you to be fully prepared to face The End." _

"I understand. You will be saved soon, I promise!"

_ "__Thank you Eterna and may the stars guide you to your path to victory…" _

The scene ended and later she had a nonsensical dream of men in black chasing after her.

As they woke up in the morning feeling refreshed, they had their breakfast and moved towards Scald Lake. Eterna intended not to tell her friends about the remaining days Xerneas had; it was enough for the team to worry about their own lives. And based on their progress, most likely they would reach Unearthly Domain in just a few days.

Within their sight, they spotted storm clouds and lightning flashed frequently onto the ground. Aura shielded the group and dived into the clouds. They braced themselves as the wind was blowing at all directions. The lightning struck the shield many times and they could see the sparks travelled down on it. The shield also minimised light from entering so the team would not be blinded by the lightning. They wandered for an hour and luckily, they spotted a huge steaming lake. There was a stone path to a cave on an island at the center of the lake, and surrounding the island was a lava responsible for heating the lake. The smell of sulphur was bearable and did not cause any discomfort to the group. Aura landed on the island and lowered down its barrier. They made their way into the cave. There, they spotted a red Pokémon standing on its four and had an arc on its back facing the back of the cave and created a vortex of fire and water, yet the fire was not extinguished or evaporating the water.

Eterna was awed by it, "Oh my gosh! I wanna learn that technique from you!"

The Pokémon was shocked by the sudden entry of the visitors. It calmed itself down and then turned around to greet them. It spoke in a male tone, "Well hello there! My name is Volcanion. And yes, combining water and fire is my specialty but why do you want to learn it from me?"

"It is because I can only do this."

She first used Malleaglow and formed a box. After she extinguished it, she conjured Shadowable and formed another box and ceased it as well. Volcanion could not believe what he saw and chatted to her excitedly.

"These moves! They were what my friend Hoopa had envisioned! You must be Eterna! Oh welcome! And sure I shall gladly help you to combine your dark power and light power and making sure they don't cancel each other out."

"Yay!"

"Alright then. Firstly, your friends must move back away from you for safety."

They moved back by his request.

"Good. Now Eterna, I want you to create light on one hand and darkness on another."

She did as she told and a ball of light and a dark flame appeared.

He nodded, "Great! Now you need to try to create a vortex using the both of them as long as you could. You must make sure they don't touch each other."

"But that requires a lot of concentration!"

"Of course it will! You must train your body to get used to it especially against a strong opponent. Now just do as I say."

She switched to Malleaglow and Shadowable and tried to swirl them together. They both hit and null each other, so she had to keep emitting her powers to make up for the lost. Sweat dripped from her as she tried to maintain it for minutes and after her strength left her, she dropped to her knees and panted.

Volcanion gave her a feedback, "It is hard to separate them in a swirl isn't it? Instead of constantly using your powers, let your light know that your dark power means no harm to it."

"Huh?"

"Light usually purify darkness because this is what it is supposed to do. But since you are the wielder of dark as well and you use it for good intention, you can mould the light within you to not erase it. This is the only way you can do to master using both elements at the same time."

"Yeah. Alright then, I shall go into Obliteration Form."

Her friends disagreed and voiced their concerns for her; but she did it anyway. In her powered up form, she closed her eyes and attempted to release the light within her. She knew the rash action of hers could kill her, but she felt no fear in attempting it. What she wanted is for her light to accept the great reservoir of darkness she had.

She released it and like a bottle of shaken soda uncapped, the light within her burst out of her. She felt immense pain but she kept on thinking that if light had ended her, there would be no one able to save this world and there would not be anyone able to save Xerneas. Her sheer determination worked as the light gradually dimed down and she was returned back to her normal form, and barely lived.

Her friends ran towards her and all sort of words from 'idiot' to 'what had you done'. However she was too weakened to hear what they said and as she was about to pass out, a Shining Sphere that she had used to create Divert Deviation for her friends came to her and entered in her body. Instead of weakening her even more; it had restored her health a little. She opened her eyes and looked at her open hands. She had finally able to control her light power not to harm her dark essence now!

Volcanion walked towards her and said, "My heart skipped a beat when you were willing to take such whole risk just to 'reason' with your light. But because of that, you already know how to combine your light and dark for an attack now. There is nothing more I can teach you! You are ready to face The End. Please be aware of his life draining attack move even though you are immune to his ability."

Eterna commented with a little difficulty, "Hold on, even though I am immune to The End's ability, he can…still drain my life if he wants to by using his attack move? It…doesn't make sense!"

"His attack move is not a Dark Type, but rather a Flying Type. But that is not something you will need to worry about, you can dodge his move easily."

"Okay…You have seen him attacking before?"

"In a matter of fact, I did. He used that move together with Xerneas and The Null in defeating the evil Pokémon."

Eterna's eyes widened, "The evil Pokémon? You mean the one who is a ring user?"

Volcanion was impressed that she knew about that, "Oh you know about it? Yes indeed. The three of them just barely brought it down."

"Oh poop. I…hope I don't see it come back again."

He grinned and said, "Well…it probably won't. Anyway, you all should be going now. But before that, go to the east of this lake to get rare berries to recover your strength."

"Will do. Thank you for teaching me Volcanion!"

"No problem! Go and teach The End a lesson!"

Chestnut and Loggerhead supported Eterna on their way out. Ice Kacang gave her a leaf bowl of melted ice for her to drink as it would be bad if she was dehydrated as well. They rode on Aura's back and flew east. It did not take long for them to spot berry trees in a short distance from the lake. They took a closer look of the berry. It looked golden and plumped. They landed and Chestnut quickly harvested a berry from a berry tree and returned back to Aura so as to avoid the chances of lightning struck at them.

As Aura was heading north towards the green pasture, Eterna was eating a golden berry. She beamed as she felt that she had her energy totally recovered! No longer panting, she asked Aura to land somewhere safe. It obliged and landed on the grassy terrain. Eterna then distanced herself from the group and went into her attack stance. Her friends wondered what she was going to do.

She used Malleaglow and Shadowable. She combined them and formed a huge faceless humanoid creature. It wore a gray hood dress and held two staffs: one white and one black. Its feathery folded wings were gray as well but they emitted a menacing aura. The creature looked at her; awaiting her commands. Her friends were astounded of her summoned creature and went close to it to marvel its beauty.

Eterna was jubilant, "Finally! My ultimate summon! I named it Abidale: a substitution that only obeys me and attacks like a gale. This is probably the best way to distract The End. It won't do anything unless I tell it to so go ahead and touch it."

They touched its wrist. It felt like Abidale was a living being as it was warm. It watched them poking at its arms without any retaliation. Eterna decided to wow them even more by instructing Abidale to do a flame shot attack. It sparked a light flame above the white staff and a dark flame above the other. After that, it threw the flame one at a time. The flames moved through the air like sparrows before disappeared. And that was not all; it could conjure light and dark barriers that shielded against an attack specifically. Light shielded from dark and dark shield from light, and they could block any attack moves from the opponent. The maintenance of the barrier was dependent on Eterna as well. The barriers could be useful to protect her while she was attacking; or her friends when she was away from them. Those were all she had intended of her summon to do and when she had enough, she disengaged it. Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang were dismayed when it disappeared.

Eterna explained, "It uses my energy so I cannot let it appear for long. But what do you think? It is a good necessity for our battle against The End isn't it?"

"But wasn't you said it uses your energy? Won't it be wiser to conserve as much energy against him as possible?" replied Chestnut.

She rejected, "And let him plummet us? We have to go all out for this!"

"Hmm…the problem with my attacks is that mine is more on close combat. I think I need to train before we meet him." suggested Loggerhead."

"Training huh? Oh yeah! I forgot to conjure a barrier here!" she realised and she hastily created three Shining Spheres to revolve around her and her friends.

"There is no need to. Since the plants managed to flourish here, it means that Volcanion's barrier has protected us from The End's effect." said Aura.

"Really? Whew…If that's the case, it will be better for us to train here then!"

Loggerhead nodded, "Yeah, since here is pretty safe to learn new moves."

Chestnut spoke embarrassingly, "I do need training as well. Apparently, I only know two moves."

"As for me, it would be good to learn a water attack." determined Ice Kacang.

"Alright then, let's us do our best in training!" cheered Eterna.

"Yeah!" said the rest.


	13. Training for a Complete Move Pool

**Chapter 13: Training for a Complete Move Pool**

It was afternoon. Loggerhead pounded the ground and rocks sprang out under Chestnut. He dodged and used Pin Needles at the bodybuilder. The needles pierced into his skin but he hardly feel pain at all. He plucked them out and performed a Bulk Up. Chestnut did not want him to pump up and used Seed Bomb to distract him. Loggerhead managed to increase his defence and attack power in time and punched the seeds away using Mach Punch. Chestnut barely evaded his attack, but not noticing the rocks showered over him. He bent over to protect himself from the falling rocks.

When they agreed to take a break, Chestnut could not help but wondered why Loggerhead's Rock Slide was different.

"Hey Loggerhead, isn't your Rock Slide is similar to Stone Edge? The rocks came from the ground isn't it?"

"Good question. Both attacks require me to slam the ground, but if I managed to find a cliff besides me and pounded on it, the rocks from the top of the cliff will fall just like what Rock Slide is meant to do; unlike Stone Edge that only occurs on the ground and in close proximity to the user." explained Loggerhead.

"Make sense. Okay! Let's carrying on our fight! I think I have two new moves to try it out."

"Really? Then show it to me!"

Chestnut focused his energy and green aura radiated out of him, then he spat out a mud ball at Loggerhead. Even though he blocked the attack using his right arm, the mud splatted out and covered his eyes. He tried to wipe off the mud off his eyes. Chestnut used this opportunity and with his right arm crackled in electricity, he punched Loggerhead on his back. Loggerhead yelled and he turned around and paid him back with Mach Punch. That attack knocked Chestnut away but he swiftly landed on his feet.

Loggerhead finally able to remove the mud in his eyes and shouted at Chestnut, "You know Thunder Punch? How did you learn that? And what was the move that you did before that?"

"Nature Power! A move that allows me to draw the power of nature depending on the terrain I am on. I can definitely surprise my opponents using this! And for Thunder Punch, I got an inspiration from the lightning strikes. To able to stun an opponent in combat is very useful indeed!"

"Yeah. Your Nature Power turned into Mud Bomb and blinded me. Oh that makes me mad."

A ball of brown light appeared above his left hand with increasing intensity. Chestnut sensed danger from this move and back away as far as he could. Loggerhead threw the ball. It went at such a dazzling speed and rammed on Chestnut with such force that he fell onto the ground. He pushed himself up and spat soil out of his mouth.

He said, "And what was that?"

"It is called Focus Blast. I am good in focusing so this attack can come in handy if I want to distance myself from the opponent. I been visualising for this attack ever since I saw Eterna performing Shining Sphere."

"Hmm! Oh right, since we have a complete move pool now, do you want to keep practising?"

Loggerhead agreed, "Of course! Let's give it our all!"

* * *

><p>Ice Kacang kept on using Blizzard on Eterna, but her Fire Spin was enough to melt the ice into water. And, water did not affect her unless it was cold. He stopped attacking and investigated the water pool in front of him. He really wanted to use a water attack so that he could damage a Fire Type Pokémon better.<p>

Eterna conversed with him, "I think there is a better way to learn a water attack. Are you able to shoot ice out of your mouth? If you can, I can direct my fire attack to melt the ice closer to you so that you may understand how to use a water attack."

Her idea struck him and he replied, "Oh, I could! I just rarely used it since I have a powerful Blizzard."

"Yup! Try to keep shooting it out. Be warned of the burning though."

"Okay! I shall do it now Miss Eterna!"

He shot out an Ice Beam, and Eterna countered with Fire Spin. Then using her wand, she moved the Fire Spin into a horizontal plane and unleashed it at Ice Kacang. The fire bypassed the Ice Beam and burned him. He refused to back down and his effort paid off as he could taste the melting ice in his mouth. All he needed to do was to remember the feeling of it. Eventually, he shot out a Water Pulse to douse the flames. The water rings even showered Eterna. It was not unusual to her that the water was cold.

She congratulated him, "Great! You have finally mastered a water attack! I guess the training is done! Ok let me heal ya."

She sent her new move Shining Sphere of Empathy like what her light ball helped her during her training with Volcanion. It entered his body and gradually healed his wounds.

He thanked her, "Thanks Miss Eterna! I couldn't have done it without you."

She shook her fur to get rid of the water and replied, "I'm just giving you an advice. The effort is done by you Ice Kacang! Ah yes! How about you, Loggerhead and Chestnut versus me in battle?"

He was bewildered, "Why?"

"As a practice against The End of course! I can weaken you all using curse power which is similar to life draining attack."

"Good idea. Okay, let's ask them then!"

They walked to where they were on a sandy ground. Chestnut was having the upper hand using Nature Power, but he was cornered by Loggerhead's Rock Slide. Ice Kacang stood in and called them to stop attacking. They looked at him puzzled.

Loggerhead asked, "What is it my friend?"

"Why don't we pit against Eterna to further prepare ourselves to fight The End?"

"Hmm…okay it is a good practise for us. How about you Chestnut?"

"Fine by me! But how should we battle? Fight till we or Eterna fainted?"

"Do it then. All of you should attack me without mercy!" recommended Eterna.

Chestnut scratched his head and replied, "Uh…okay since we love to battle till fainted and all. Give us a minute for us to discuss on how to deal with you then."

"Sure! Take your time."

As the males were strategising, Eterna was planning on her attacks as well. She did not know what other moves The End had so she stuck to use all her dark moves; with the exemption of Obliteration Form. It did not take long for them to finished planning. Eterna pointed her wand at them and said:

"Bring it chumps!"

Ice Kacang chuckled, "Oh hohoho, you shouldn't have said that! I shall go first then!"

He went into his mega form and summoned a strong Blizzard at her. Eterna used Shadowable to shield her from his attack, but she did not see Loggerhead used Focus Blast at behind her and it hit her. In frustration, she created five Torture Pillars and after she cancelled her Shadowable, she controlled the vortexes using her wand and chased after the males. Chestnut managed to use Nature Power while he was running away. His attack converted into Energy Ball and he directed it to Eterna. She avoided that attack easily, until Ice Kacang managed to land a hit on her using Water Pulse at her blind spot. Now double soaked, she could not take the cold any longer so she surrounded herself with Fire Spin. Now the three males thought it was their chance to defeat her. Loggerhead used Focus Blast and Ice Kacang used Water Pulse. Their combined attacks extinguished Fire Spin, only to reveal she was not there. The five Torture Pillars were still chasing after them though so they could not stop but to move around. But all of a sudden, a purple ball came out from a vortex that was near Chestnut and slammed him on the ground. He howled in pain and that got Loggerhead's and Ice Kacang's attention that Eterna must have used Abyss's Door to warp herself into one of the vortexes. They could not extinguish them as they were immune to their elemental attacks, but that did not mean they could not attack what was inside of them. Loggerhead used multiple Rock Slides at the vortexes. A yelp was heard and all the vortexes disintegrated, revealing Eterna grabbing her left foot.

Ice Kacang made use of her immobility and shot another Water Pulse at her. But this time Eterna was well prepared. She shrouded herself with Inundation Flames as it was her fastest executing move. The flames did not protect her from the water attack, but she could spread the flames quickly. Instantly, her flames scattered all around her friends, leaving them not enough space to run around. Then, she fuelled her flames with more of her power and they grew in size, attempting to devour her friends. Loggerhead and Ice Kacang were petrified as they could not do anything to block this attack, but Chestnut retaliated by releasing many Pin Needles at her. She could not react quickly enough and the needles pierced through her lower part of her body. She collapsed in pain and the flames disappeared.

Chestnut did not expect his needles to hurt her severely. He hurriedly went to her side and plucked out the needles. As her body was not as tough as Loggerhead, every time he pulled out a needle, a blood oozed out. Loggerhead and Ice Kacang saw how bad Eterna's condition was and stopped Chestnut from plucking the needles.

Chestnut retaliated, "Why did you stop me? We cannot let the needles stay there!"

Loggerhead argued, "It is better than you pull them out. Look! There is lots of blood coming out of her. Do you want her to die from anaemia?"

"But…what else can we do?"

"I don't think my ice can do any help to her. No one wants to be in hypothermia state…" said Ice Kacang sadly and he reverted back to his normal self.

Eterna turned her head towards them and mustered her strength to speak, "Guys…let me solve this issue myself. I need…you all to stand back.

After they moved enough distance away from her, she lit herself in flames. The needles were burned into ashes, but her open wounds were charred as well. Because of her nerves near the skin were burned, she felt no pain. She created Shining Sphere of Empathy and let it healed her gradually. Soon, she could stand on her feet once more.

She patted her fur and took a sigh of relief, "Whew…healing is awesome! And…I admitted I have lost the battle. Great battle dudes!"

"Eterna! You shouldn't say like that. I…almost killed you! And you were almost dead during Volcanion's training!" cried Chestnut.

She tried to console him, "Well…you could if the needle pierced through my head. But I am still here isn't it?"

"That makes me more worried if you put it that way…"

"But really, I didn't expect his Pin Needles can be so deadly…"said Loggerhead.

"He should not use this move on you again." recommended Ice Kacang.

She faced them and replied, "Well, it is our last battle so he won't need to do it anyway." Then she looked at Chestnut, "Come on, you are a guy so don't cry. Hey, it is a good thing your Pin Needles can do lots of damage to the opponent. It may come in handy against The End! So cheer up since you found your move is the most devastating!"

He wiped his tears and nodded. He swore he would be much more wary of her when battling against a foe.

They took a much needed tea time break. Eterna had restocked her sling bag with more berries and ate a Babiri Berry for its iron rich content, but it was spicy as well. She ate Aguav Berry to tone the spiciness with its bitterness. Then, she lied down under the shade of the Aguav Berry Tree and dozed off. She might have healed her body but it took time for her trauma to ease away. Her friends, including Aura that did not do much but to observe the battle, looked at her sleeping soundly. They settled down and took a snooze as well as they need to prepare for the final journey to Unearthly Domain.


	14. The Tower of Blight

**Chapter 14: The Tower of Blight**

Diancie and Hoopa faced in front of the giant glowing crystal. Hoopa had decided to awaken The Null even though she was not worthy to do it. Diancie supported her decision since she understood her urgency to wake it up.

Hoopa used Spirit Linkage to find the spirit of the legendary. Immediately, she was repelled by a strong mental power. A low pitched male voice was heard:

_ "__You! What are you doing here? Didn't I forbid you to awaken me?"_

_ "__You need to wake up The Null! I have foreseen a terrible future that revealed this continent will disappear soon!" begged Hoopa._

_ "__Hmm…I sensed there is fear in your speech. You could be telling the truth based on your foresight. Very well, I will not judge you for awakening me." _He paused his speech before continued, _"I also sensed that there is other thing you want to tell me as well. Oh? The End is making mischief and The Bringer of Life is in danger? Why does this happen when I was asleep?"_

_ "__That is not important as Eterna can take care of it. What I plea for you is to stop what comes after that."_

_ "__Is that so? But due to the severity of the situation, I shall roam this land once more."_

_ "__Wait wait wait, not now! If you do so, Eterna will not be able to use her powers?"_

_ "__You mean her powers are aura based? You seemed to trust her a lot in her abilities. But with my presence around, I can stop The End from rampaging and return The Bringer of Life's power back to her instantly. And then, I shall tend to whatever happens next."_

_ "__But that will defeat the purpose of Eterna's arrival in this world!"_

_ "__She was summoned from the other world? She is one special being. Since The Bringer of Life is the only one I know can do this, she must be very capable. Hmm…I should meet her one day." _He paused again and then resuming the conversation, _"I can choose whose power or abilities to be disabled. I will do nothing for now until the scene you spoke off occurs. The End will not be able to detect my power in this barrier. Now, I shall rose up. Step aside."_

Spirit Hoopa returned back to her body and alerted Diancie to move back. Without warning, the ground shook and fissures appeared out from the crystal. The crystal cracked and a huge hydra appeared. His head was black with four hexagon eyes on each side of his face. There was a white line on the center of his face. He had no mouth so he could only communicate using his telepathy. He had a black fan on its back and had rhythmic hexagon scales on the top of it illuminating from right to left. His wings were below it. The left wing was black and the right was green. Its lower green frontal and black posterior coloured body was strong enough to keep him upright. His tail was fin-shaped. He slammed his tail on the ground and green light radiated out of his hexagon scales to signal his awakening was complete.

Then he looked down at Hoopa and Diancie and spoke mentally, _"I, Zygarde The Null has revived! Well then, let's watch the heroine's progress in Unearthly Domain shall we?"_

* * *

><p>They continued their journey in the evening by riding on Aura, except Chestnut and Eterna ridding on her Shadowable. They emerged out of Volcanion's barrier and headed South-East. Once more, they were flying over the dead canopies. At a distance, they could spot black long moving shrouds on the earth minuscule to their view dancing under the starry sky. Those were Unpenetrated Flames. Nothing was known about this fire wall but the team could assume that it would be devastating to even touch the flames. Even with the flames in sight, it took them eight hours to reach there. They were awed to find that the flames were as tall as the mountains. Eterna and Aura tried to soar above the flames, but an invisible barrier bounced them off. Nevertheless, they spotted Unearthly Domain ahead; red swirl markings pulsing from within the huge black tower and the tower was even taller than the clouds. It was so tall that the sky seemed to be sliced into half.<p>

It seemed the only way to go reach there was going through the blackish flames. Eterna's currently active Divert Deviation was not enough to protect them, so she suggested that she could use Purity Swirl to repel the flames ahead of them to reveal a path. She had said to them before that it was a powerful light attack and could exhaust her, but maybe this was the time she could handle it well. Her friends supported her move and so, she and Chestnut leapt on Aura's back and she cancelled her Shadowbale. Then, she focused her mind and light flowed out of her like a wave in all directions. Aura immediately flew into the barrier. The light did repel the flames and within minutes, they were out. Eterna stopped using her move and ate a Mago Berry to recover her strength.

With no other obstacles, they headed straight for the looming tower. The ground below was charred in black. There was no way for them to take a break and carried on towards the tower. When dawn broke, the light revealed the tower had a dull black appearance as no light was reflected on it. And then in the afternoon, they finally reach the foot of the menacing tower. As there were no visible blocks that made up this tower, Eterna wanted to know what material that made it up. She touched it. It was cold and had rock-like surface. It was unbelievable that the tower was an ultra-tall rock! Each of the red swirls illuminating from within the tower was about six hundred meters in width. They looked like a river to hell.

If they were to climb this tower, it might take them two days to reach the top. The group wanted to do the easier route which was to fly all the way to the top. Aura volunteered to scout whether it was possible to reach the peak by flight and zoomed off. The rest looked up and soon, they could see that it could not fly upwards any further. It returned back to them and explained the barrier that blocked her was made out off probably thousands of years of fortifying so Eterna would not have enough strength to break down a powerful barrier.

They had no choice but to search for the entrance to enter the tower. As if the tower had sensed their desperation, a huge semicircle entrance suddenly appeared in front of them. Eterna felt a negative pressure came out of it was so great that she saw her Divert Deviation wore off quickly. She created five more Divert Deviation, but unfortunately they lost their effect quickly as well. Aura then stood in and protected them. It could make use of the negativity to become its energy if it was not too strong for it to take it. Relieved, the team walked into the entrance. Now, they were on top of a black floating platform and surrounded them was a flight of black curved stairs with an endless pit. The red swirling markings within the tower illuminated the way. They climbed the stairs and after possibly twenty minutes later, they found themselves on top of a huge floating platform. There, five Banettes sneering at their arrival and threw Shadow Ball at them. The attacks were absorbed by Aura and it reflected them in two folds. The Ghost Pokémons were too stunned to react and got knocked out instantly. Eterna, Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang cheered for its remarkable countering. Aura simply replied that it needed to let loose some energy it absorbed so its countering was powered up thanked to negativity in the air.

Another flight of curved stairs appeared. They climbed to the next level and fought some Ghost or Dark Types Pokémons. The pattern kept on repeating until they conquered twenty floors. There, a small room with ghostly flames lighting it up, revealing an exit ahead. There appeared to be no threats in this room so the team decided to take a break before they moved on. They used this chance to discuss how to beat The End as well. Hours later, they carried on. When they exited the room, they were astonished to find many floating rocks in ascending order instead of stairs and strong whirlwinds ejected from the sides of the tower. Eterna took the initiative to create Shadowable into a translucent sphere that encompassed them and levitated up. She concentrated hard to avoid them being suck into the whirlwind and Aura destroyed the floating rocks that came near them. It took them a while to finally reach the platform that was safe for them to land. Eterna disengaged her Shadowable and lied down, panting from mentally exhaustion.

"We should rest here then. We don't even know what day is it now but we can all assume it is bedtime." said Loggerhead.

"Yeah…whew! We are so beat right now. Just how many floors left to reach the peak?" asked Ice Kacang.

"No idea. We might have climbed one third of the tower right now. But we cannot go on without a rest. We must be fresh for the battle against The End."

Aura spoke, "I agree. Go ahead and rest. I will take care of the negativity."

They slept soundly. Eterna had a weird possible dream of the future of her world with limited fossil oil. Governments fought over last few remaining oil reserves instead of finding other harvestable energy to power their countries. She shook her head in disbelief. Maybe she did not need to remove the source of evil since it was going to run dry anyway. Instead, it was better to help the poor civilians that were suffering due to government's complacency. She was not sure of what kind of plan would be ideal for humans as she did not want the big corporations making use of her aid to benefit their own, but she did not want to see humans killing each other just for survival. Driving to their own demise will leave a great deal of destruction behind them and that might make Earth unhospitable place for other creatures.

She was the first to wake up from the unusual dream. Aura saw her and requested her to come closer to it. It said:

"Eterna, are you able to absorb the negativity around you?"

Eterna's eyes beamed, "Why will I want to do that? I may not able to handle too much of it."

"I am suggesting that you could take the negative energy around you and use it as to power up your curse attacks. There is no need to store them as reserves."

"Oh. This might be useful in fighting The End. Okay, do you mind I try it on you?"

"Sure."

Eterna placed her hand on Aura's shield. She felt lots of dark power within it. So far, she learned moves by visualising so she imagined its power flowed into her. Slowly but surely, Aura's power was sweeping into her body. Her curse power increased and her light power remained the same but preventing the darkness from engulfing it. She was glad she still remained sane.

She was enthusiastic, "Oh! I still feel okay! Just a little more powerful that's all."

"Glad it works. By the way, since you are awake, do you want to continue to go higher in the tower?"

Eterna nodded, "Why not? As long our friends don't get disturb by the jerking haha."

Eterna conjured a rounded life boat using Shadowable and Aura extended its shape-shifting arms to carry their friends onto it. Then they took off. After some airtime, they stumbled into a realm of lightning. Aura's barrier protected its friends from the shock and the glaring from the bolts and Eterna could maneuver with ease. She spotted a huge hole in the center of ceiling and flew into it. The group was 'dropped' into a room of sand dunes, and unexpectedly hot and well-lighted. Three figures approached them with laughter. They looked like onis on clouds, and shiny as well. They woke a black pearl necklace too. One of them introduced themselves:

"Welcome brave heroes. My name is Landorus. And the blueish one is Thundurus and the other is Tornadus. We are here to challenge you for a battle! Wait a minute, is your friends are asleep?"

"Well yeah! And you three came in the wrong time." said Eterna.

"What do you mean by that?"

Then Tornadus nudged him, "Um brother, I sensed a powerful dark power within her; just like our boss."

Landorus was flabbergasted,"What?"

Eterna did not let him finished his sentence and lashed out three black arms out of her active Shadowables and grabbed them. She then tossed them onto the grayish ceiling. They fainted instantly. Eterna could not believe how weak they were and commented:

"Oh damn, they should have just attack us without the greetings."

An exit appeared at the ceiling. The group continued to move upwards and entered another room. This time the room was a huge cave and was dark and cold. Eterna decided it was time to wake her friends up using a Shining Sphere. The light ball woke them abruptly and they squealed in protest.

"Argh! Stop it Eterna!" shouted Chestnut.

Eterna snickered, "Bright and shine dudes! We had suddenly found ourselves in a dark room."

"Huh? How?" asked Ice Kacang.

"Were we warped into here when we were sleeping?" inquired Loggerhead.

Eterna praised herself for lying brilliantly, "Yeah. I woke up and here we are. Aura saw that we were pulled into this realm. Am I right?"

"Yes. A black whirlpool sucked us in." Aura played along.

Ice Kacang folded his arm and commented, "Oh shoot. Does that mean we cannot rest here for long after all?"

Chestnut replied, "Well, we cannot rest for long in this tower anyway because of the urgency in our hands. Anyway, what is this room?"

He got out of Eterna's Shadowable and landed on the ground. All of a sudden, a trap appeared under him and activated. He felt that he had forgotten something. Eterna, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang gasped; it was a PP-Zero Trap Tile! That meant they were in a mystery dungeon! They quickly pulled him on board.

Chestnut was upset, "Oh no. I think one of my moves is sealed. I guess I have to drink a Max Elixir."

Eterna felt for him, "Yeah…but seriously, a mystery dungeon? Here? I don't see a point in that."

"It is a mystery dungeon after all. It can appear in a weirdest of place." said Loggerhead.

Chestnut sulked, "Yeah yeah. We should move on. I don't want to stay in the dark for too long."

They flew into the corridor with two Shining Spheres placed in one in front and one at the back so that they could spot danger around them. The ground, walls and ceiling were blueish black and no other sounds could be heard except for the team. As there were no resident Pokémons, they made their way up ten floors and eventually, they reached a huge dark room where a whitish figure moving around. Then, the white figure zoomed towards them and showed its tongue at them. It was a white Gengar with red eyes peering at them. It mercilessly shot out three Shadow Balls right at their face; only to be blocked by Aura. It giggled and zoomed back into the darkness.

"What is that for?" said Eterna.

Next, a purple dazzling light pierced through Aura's defence. Eterna turned extended her Shadowable to reflect the light, allowing Aura to recover. She also created five more Shining Spheres and sent them away to scour the annoying ghost. Soon she spotted it and the Shining Sphere that was closest to him lit up so bright that Gengar had literally vanished in the room. Then, the room brightened up itself to reveal a Warp Tile at its center. They went near it and shockingly, they were ambushed by ten Mismagiuses and a Gourgeist! The Mismagiuses promptly used Dazzling Gleam, but Eterna's Shadowable was strong enough to block the light.

One of the lady ghosts spoke, "Mister Gourgeist, her defence is too strong for us!"

He replied, "Maintain your Dazzling Gleam and leave Miss Foxy to me."

The pumpkin Pokémon disappeared and then appeared right beside her. After that, he repelled her friends with Dark Pulse. The ten Mismagiuses' Dazzling Gleam critically injured Aura but not much to her friends. Eterna wasted no time and went to the wall of a room and looked for Aura and her friends. She took them in and used Shining Sphere of Empathy to heal Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang and gave part of her power to Aura to regenerate its strength.

"Thank you Eterna." said Aura. "It is shameful of me to unable to resist their attacks."

She replied, "Don't be too hard on yourself. Let me pay them back _dearly_."

"We will fight. Seeing Mister Gourgeist there had proved to us that he was the mastermind in Mystical Hub." angered Loggerhead.

"So no matter what they said, we shall ignore them." aggravated Chestnut.

"Well said! Let's wipe them!" said Ice Kacang eagerly.

She cancelled Shadowable and created Abidale to protect Aura. Once the ten Mismagiuses were worn out from their attacks, the team leapt into the battle field. Ice Kacang mega evolved when he dashed towards the ten Mismagiuses and used Blizzard. Loggerhead followed through with Rock Slide and the rocks broke off from the ceiling and Chestnut used Seed Bombs. The lady ghosts did not bother to move as the attacks just swept through them. What they did not know that they were distractions. Eterna created spears using Malleable and pierced through their bodies. They screamed and faded away. Gourgeist could not believe how strong Eterna had become. He had no choice but to used Trick-or-Treat. Mini ghosts tagged her friends in combat. Her friends did not know what this move means until he slugged them with Shadow Sneaks. His attacks became super effective! With Eterna preoccupied on saving her friends, he grabbed her and attempting to put her to sleep. But Eterna had enough being put to sleep. She radiated her body with Purity Swirl. It petrified him and in an act of vengeance, she let the light gradually purify him to ascent him to god-knows-where.

He begged, "Please…I don't want to die…"

She grinned, "Funny that you plead to me to live as you are _already dead_. Farewell."

"Noooooooo!"

His scream died out as he had completely disappeared.

Eterna was reprieved that the battle was over, but her friends were gasping hard. Eterna realised that they were not protected against the negativity and created Shadowable shield form to protect them. She also disengaged Abidale to conserve her energy. Aura flew towards Eterna and requested that it was alright now and it should be doing the protecting so that she could recover. She did not object and cancelled Shadowable. She also took out an Enigma Berry to munch on. She had a big appetite because she used a lot of energy for her dark and light attacks.

They walked on the Wrap Tile and they were taken to a floating black platform where the three shiny onis Eterna had met before awaited them.

"Oh Missy, glad you all have made it here." said Thundurus.

"What? Who are you?" bluffed Eterna.

"Don't be silly! You bashed us to the ceiling and we fainted. Good thing the heat from the sand woke us up."

"Hmmm…Did I?"

Chestnut whispered to her, "Should we attack them? They sound like lunatics. We didn't seen them before haven't we?"

"Oh we are here to attack you, we are here to give you something." said Tornadus.

"Huh what? How did you know I was..."

"I am a user of wind. I can direct it to anywhere I want, and that means the sound waves as well. Anyway, please take this."

The three of them passed their black pearl necklace to Chestnut, Loggerhead and Mega Evolved Ice Kacang.

"What are these?" asked Loggerhead.

Landorus explained, "The black pearl will protect you from the negativity in the air and our boss's ability. Don't lose it!"

Eterna voiced her concerned, "Wait a minute…doesn't that mean you guys…"

"Well…we are tired of him imprisoned us. We have roles for this land and that is to vitalise the ground so that Pokémons can enjoy the lush greenery. But we were taken by The End as guards to prevent intruders proceeding in the tower."

Thundurus continued, "We will be fine against this negativity. Just keep going. The End is right above here."

Tornadus painfully created a wind vortex to open the gate on the ceiling and said, "Now go! Defeat him for all of us and the fellow Pokémons that live here! We want the land to be back as it is before."

"Hold on. I can warp you all to a safe place and you all will not need to suffer here!" suggested Eterna.

"You can?"

"Yes. In apologies and appreciation for what you done, this is the best I can do for you all." She created Abyss's Door under them and proceeded with her conversation, "Enter this portal."

They flew into the portal and the group heard "Thank you" from them before the portal closed.

Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang wore the necklace. As Aura lowered its barrier, they did not feel any difference at all. The necklace worked and now Aura and Eterna did not need to protect them from the negativity anymore. Aura took them to the hole in the ceiling. They would need to give it their all their upcoming battle.

* * *

><p>Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfic. I had done some sketches of Eterna's movepool. They were drawn using light pencil but still visible for these pics. Hope these spurs your imagination!<p>

art/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-EO-Eterna-Curse-Power-513434130

art/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-EO-Eterna-Light-Power-513434756


	15. Trouble Brewing

**Chapter 15: Trouble Brewing**

The morning sunrays blinded the team momentarily but they spotted something huge oval shape on the rounded black platform; black cocoon with red swirls marking pulsing to show that something was inside. It had a height of three stories high and its width was about ten metres long. As expected but still startling for them, the cocoon broke and an immense creature emerged out of it; roaring to show his might.

He looked like a Y-shaped being. He had black goat-like thin horns on its head, gray neck fur and black veins patterns all over his red frontal body. His small legs were incomparable to his long claw-like wings, and even his tail had five claws. His back was black and had gray diamond markings on evenly distributed for each edge of his Y body. He peered at Eterna, and then her friends and said:

"Welcome to my lair, heroes. My name is Yveltal The End and I govern the death of all Pokémons. I am sure you all want to know why I had stolen my sister Xerneas's power?"

There was no reply from them, but they just stared at him. They did not know that Xerneas was his sister.

"I guess it is a yes. I am certain one of you agreed that controlling Nature was not the way to be. Should Nature claim lives; it is all part of life. Only the strongest and the wicked can survived. As for me absorbing the lives of the Pokémons in my territory was my way to control my sister's power. I will make sure that Nature will take its course to wreck the land as it sees fit."

Eterna realised an important part was left out and asked, "So what is Nature?"

"Nature is the balance of the planet. Should something tilt the balance such as the global warming, elsewhere in this planet would have extreme blizzards to balance the world's temperature. And if there is life blooming in one area, the other area will be barren. It is the system that keeps the planet in check. But what I can see is my sister has been controlling Nature 'for the better good' too much even after our older brother had sealed himself that the planet's balance is tilting too much to the point that something catastrophic will follow."

"And what is that?"

"I will to tell you…if you manage beat me!"

He flapped his wings and Aura immediately shrouded its friends with her barrier. Strange 'red strings' were drawn to him. Aura stated it was the red strings of life from all living beings around him and if they were caught in his Oblivion Wing, they might die instantly. Yveltal was impressed of Aura's intuition but he knew it would be a hassle for him. He used Psychic to move Aura out of his tower's barrier. Aura was stunned by his act and tried to enter the barrier, only to be repelled by it.

He laughed, "Well then, now is a _fairer_ battle isn't it? You all are finished!"

He used another Oblivion Wing at them. Eterna then used Purity Swirl and with all her might, she directed it towards him. Yveltal saw the threat and stopped his attack and used Psychic to move it away. Loggerhead used this chance and created Rock Slide that erupted below Yveltal. With him losing his concentration, Ice Kacang still in his mega form lashed out a Blizzard at him. Chestnut followed suit and used Nature Power. It transformed into Tri Attack and it hit him successfully. The black beast howled in pain and attempted to use Hurricane to blow them away. Eterna was determined not to give him any chances and conjured many Shining Spheres. Yveltal could not see her attack well due to the morning sun so when her attack entered his body, he was weakened to the point that he could not fly for a while. But all of a sudden, he disappeared. Eterna did not know where he went until he reappeared and slammed her friends with such force that they were now close to the edge of the tower. He snorted and he disappeared once more. Eterna countered his strategy and created Abyss's Doors under her friend's feet and reopened the portal above her to allow her friends to be by her side. When Yveltal reappeared in front of the group, Chestnut mercilessly used Pin Needles at his left wing; rendered it useless. In his triumph over him, he felt jubilant and his body radiated light and once it diminished, he was in his final form! He had evolved into Chesnaught! His friends were surprised of his new buffed up look and had a tough spikey shell at his back. Chestnut could not believe himself either but now he was powered up, he punched Yveltal with his Thunder Punch. The super effective hit made him fell onto the ground. The group stopped attacking and looked at him but he seemed silent. It could be that he fainted!

The team cheered for joy. They were proud of themselves able to defeat a legendary so easily. Eterna was especially happy for Chestnut that he dealt with the final blow. She gave him Chesnanite for him to hold on.

Chestnut looked at it and said, "This is…a Mega Stone for me?"

"Yup! You can mega evolve now! Wanna try?" she replied.

"Yeah! Let's do it!"

Eterna's Mega Bracelet and Chestnut's Mega Stone shone brightly. And then, he was encased in a ball of purple light and when he emerged, his body was in an entirely different form! His two brownish arms were guarded with green rounded spikey shield and two dark brown straight horns sprouted on his head. He had no shell on his back; only six 'brown orbs' growing on it. His dark brown legs were stumpy as well as his upper body was very heavy to support. His light brown chest hair was more puffier as well. He looked at himself and smiled that he looked pretty awesome in his temporary form.

As the team were celebrating, they were unaware that Yveltal was gathering his strength. When he recovered enough, he suddenly grabbed Loggerhead using his right arm. The group was shocked. Ice Kacang used Ice Shard at his right wing, but it got deflected by his Psychic. Yveltal looked at Loggerhead and smirked:

"It's all over for you!"

His right arm shone and Loggerhead began to yell in pain. He was using Oblivion Wing without even flapping his wing! In panic, Ice Kacang and Chestnut used combination of Blizzard and Seed Bomb attack but they were easily deflected from him. Only Eterna was calmed enough to think of strategy. She used Malleaglow and warped up his right wing. Yveltal tried to repel her using Psychic, but she still stood on her ground. Next she used her wand and created three Psyshocks. The purple balls exploded in front of him. He relaxed his grip on Loggerhead and Ice Kacang and Chestnut saved him from his fall. In frustration, Yveltal roared and stood up, swinging his arms to push them away. They landed safely and watching him what he would do next. He eyed at them and the air suddenly became so dense that Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang were feeling dizzy; only Eterna was unaffected. She grabbed her friends using Malleaglow and created a barrier to protect them. Within her barrier, her friends were feeling much better but when they saw Eterna sweating profusely to maintain the shield, they could not help but worrying for her.

"Eterna!" said Chestnut, "What can we do now?"

She replied painstakingly, "You all can attack him from here using a distance attack. Do it!"

Her friends nodded. Chestnut used Seed Bombs erupted from his back, Loggerhead struggled with his Focus Blast and Ice Kacang used Blizzard. All their attacks went out of her barrier and landed a hit on Yveltal, but this time it seemed there was no visible flinching from him. They were flabbergasted.

"Our attacks aren't working on him, and he is still using that weird pressure thing on us!" mentioned Ice Kacang.

"I know Hey you guys, I may not able to protect you all for long. I have to transport you all to where Aura is."

Chestnut protested, "What? But then you will be all alone!"

"Being alone is what I need!" She opened an Abyss's Door behind them and continued, "Now go! I will make him stop!"

They reluctantly obliged and entered the portal. Eterna, now able to release her barrier summoned Abidale to her aid and instructed it to burn his wings. It flew towards him and lit up its staffs. Then the black and white flames engulfed his wings. Yveltal screeched and now he focused on bring Abidale down. Eterna then ran behind him and latched on to his back. Yveltal turned his head to look at her and saw a bright light illuminating out of her. She said:

"See whether you can take this!"

She released all her light power at Yveltal. He howled in agony and thrashed his body to try to flee from her. However, the light weakened him so much that the power he stolen from Xerneas came out of his body as it was no longer bind to him. The bright pink ball of light quickly flew off into the sky and Eterna knew it would return to Xerneas soon.

With all her light spent, she leapt out of him and panted. Abidale instinctively flew towards her since the foe had been defeated. Yveltal sat down and began to chuckle:

"Hah haa…you have defeated me…but the disaster will still happen."

"Explain." she demanded. She was too tired to raise up her voice.

"I…did mention that the balance had tilted to the point that something horrible will happen. That is the collapse of this continent. I had foreseen this outcome too late and even though I managed to hold on to my sister's power, it is not enough to balance the world."

Then a voice was heard like an echo in the mind, _"Is that true? I did not know it progressed that badly."_

Yveltal turned around and saw Zygarde, Hoopa and Diancie exited out of Hyperspace Hole.

"Brother? You have awakened! But this time you did not stop me. Why?"

_"I watched you battled the heroes and revealed your methods of why you took younger sister's power. And the near future…"_

"You have foreseen it as well?"

_"Hoopa told me about it, but there is a better way to save the world. Firstly, all three of us must consult Worldcore about letting Nature take its own course now."_

Yveltal managed to stand up and replied, "Very well, I shall follow. For Hoopa to be able to teleport you all here must have proven that my barrier in my territory has been broken and you have released her confinement am I right?"

_"Yes as the situation now is dire."_ Zygarde then faced Eterna and said to her telepathically, _"As for you brave Eterna, thank you for coming into this world and save my younger sister. But I am afraid you have another task in your hand."_

Eterna looked at Hoopa but she decided to hide her anger. She then faced at Zygarde and said, "What is it?"

_"Even if Worldcore allows Nature to do its own work, it cannot save us from the impending doom. I want you to go to Skyward Blocks and read the text in there. It should tell you what you will need to do to save this land."_

"Alright. I will."

_"Good. And now, we must go."_

Diancie waved goodbye to Eterna, and so does Hoopa. Eterna waved back but not directly at Hoopa as she would not forgive for what she had done to her and her friends. They entered the portal and the golden ring closed it and disappeared. Eterna then warped herself to where Aura was and spread the news to them. They understood the situation and she warped her and her friends to outside Skyward Blocks. The gray blocks sheltered the group from the morning sun and gave them some reprieves. Eterna ate an Oran Berry as her recovery food before going into the dungeon portal. Chestnut and Ice Kacang were reverted to their normal forms. And with Loggerhead, they were having their berries as well while waiting for her.

Eterna wandered in the dungeon with her Shining Sphere and instantly spotted a poem on a wall in front of her. There was future tense involved to tell her what she needed to do. It stated:

_The seal within Thorn Fortress should be undone_

_By a Pokémon inherited the golden ring _

_The Imprison will have its former power _

_And it will be strong enough to prevent the collapse of the continent_

_After it have done its duty_

_The power must be sealed once more_

_And the golden ring shall return to whence it came_

Eterna blurted out, "What? A seal within the Thorn Fortress? Oh that means…fudge. And the power must be sealed once more…as if it is easy to do so. I am sceptical that no lives will be lost if I undid the seal."

Then a stairs appeared. She climbed the stairs and entered a room where a golden ring about the size of her palm hovered in the center of it. Eterna suspected that was the key to unseal the power within the golden thorn. The ring floated closer to Eterna. She stood still and saw it made its way to her right wrist and contracted to fit on her wrist nicely. She felt a cool sensation from it. Then a Warp Tile appeared at the back of the room. She stepped on it and teleported back to her friends.

"So, have you found the answer Eterna?" asked Chestnut.

"Yeah. It is unexpected but we have to go to Thorn Fortress."

"What!?" the males exclaimed.

"I am as shocked as you all are as well! We have to revive the ultimate evil! But the poem stated it is only the power that is sealed. The Imprison is alive somewhere…"

Chestnut was puzzled, "The Imprison, the ultimate evil is still alive? But we have no clue to who it is!"

"Maybe. But I have the golden ring to undo the seal and it might lead us to The Imprison." She showed them the ring on her right wrist.

"Wow…it looks gorgeous on you Miss Eterna! Though you have a lot of responsibility as the holder of it" praised Ice Kacang.

"Yeah. You are the only one able to do unsealing." said Loggerhead.

_ "__I wish I am not as I don't want to be responsible for…"_ thought Eterna but she stopped. She then spoke to them, "Alright. We must go there immediately. The three legendaries might be consulting to Worldcore now."

She used Abyss's Door and they were warped to where the small golden thorn was. The golden ring emitted a soft glow of light. It moved out of her wrist and encased the thorn. All of a sudden, an immense dark aura gushed out of the thorn and flew into the sky. The wind it produced was so strong that the group almost lost their footings. Eterna felt something from the dark aura. It was a pure menace; way more powerful than her initial true self's curse power. She wondered how the three legendaries managed to seal this horrible power away in the ancient past.

It took a while for all the dark power to fully escape from the seal. Eterna noticed Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang looking worried seeing the huge amount black aura moving away towards the west. As for the golden ring on the seal, it went back to Eterna and fastened on her right wrist once more.

"I don't know whether we did the right thing." commented Ice Kacang, "I felt a horrible vibe from it."

"We just do nothing from now on until something bad happens." suggested Loggerhead.

Eterna spoke, "Well…since Yveltal has stopped using his ability to sap all life here, we should find a safe place to rest. I recommend that we go to Magica Settlement."

"But why?" asked Chestnut.

"Well…I like it there." Eterna did not mentioned about her feeling of irritation whenever she thought of Horizon Town and Mystical Hub.

"Okay if you wanna go there, let's go then!"

They warped at Magica Settlement's town. There, the Delphoxes were stunned of their sudden arrival. They hastily gathered around them and cheered for their victory over Yveltal. Some of the foxes even went away to get their queen to come and see them. The group felt good of their praises, but they were not the type to gloat of their triumph over The End. Eventually, Eterna interrupted and asked for an empty house they could rest. The foxes led them to the same house Eterna had slept in before and one of them graciously opened the door to let the team in. Once inside, Eterna straight away put her sling bag on the floor and leapt onto the round mattress. She rolled all over in glee. Her friends sat on the bed as well and realised how comfy it was. Then she stopped rolling after smelling something stinky from_ someone._ She got up and alerted them.

"We need to bathe. It had been ages since we last showered."

"Oh. Sorry that I smell like rotten fish." apologised Loggerhead.

Ice Kacang patted his back and said, "Sweat defines your toughness my friend so don't be too hard on yourself!"

Loggerhead chuckled at his words. He was glad that Ice Kacang knew who to comfort him. He then turned to Chestnut and Eterna and continued, "So where do we go to bathe then?"

Chestnut proposed an idea, "How about the small crystal lake we been before? I am sure you like that place Eterna."

Eterna's grinned, "Ooh! I like that place! Sure! Let's put our stuffs here and get moving!"

They warped at the lake side. Eterna jumped into the lake and swam some rounds while her friends except Aura took a much needed bath. Nothing beat water to calm her mind down since she had been worried of her decision to release the seal; more so than worrying for the wellbeing of her family. She had been out here for exactly two weeks and it felt like a year of experience in surviving in the wild. She quite enjoyed her trip in this world with her friends and when she had to go back to her world, she had no doubt she would be tearful about it.

They returned back to the clay house and were surprised to see Queen Lilla sitting on the wooden chair awaited for their arrival.

She spoke, "Ah welcome back Miss Eterna; and your friends as well. I am very thankful of you all defeated The End. Now the three abundance Pokémons you sent to us had ventured off to fertile his territory. I must say I was appalled when they suddenly appeared in front of me, until they told me that you had warped them here. Your powers are pretty amazing to able to send them here."

"Well…that time I was only able to warp them within Yveltal's territory. But now since his barrier was broken, any Pokémon can enter and exit from that place now." replied Eterna.

"Splendid! But I think you know why I haven't pulled down mine, yes?"

"Yeah…the upcoming disaster."

"Indeed. But it did not cross my mind that you had to release the seal of The Imprison's power to counterbalance the world. I am very worried about that…I cannot foresee the future of The Imprison."

"Why is that?"

"The Imprison has a strong psychic power that thwarts anyone trying to see its fate, and that including depicting its future. It is not easy to bring it down, and I feel that this time The Bringer of Life, The End and The Null aren't enough to defeat it."

Eterna was astonished, "What the heck? So what can we do?"

"You can help them Miss Eterna. Even though its dark power surpasses yours, you have light power to back you up. Hmm…there is a possibility you can amplify your light and together with your curse power together to able to resist against it. That is when you feel that you need to defeat it at all cost I believe. Everyone can tap into their hidden strength when they are cornered." assured the queen.

"Uh…you can't teach me in this?"

"I'm afraid not. But believe me, you can do it…Hmm!?" The queen was taken aback of her new foresight.

"What is it?"

"Miss Eterna, you have to go to Segment Ridge at once. _Now!_"

"Why?"

"Go! Before it is too late!"

Eterna promptly created Abyss's Door and the team took their belongings before stepping in. Queen Lilla's spoke to Eterna before the portal closes:

"No matter how grim the outcome, do not lose hope!"

* * *

><p>Tada! A sketch for Mega Chesnaught!<p>

art/Mega-Chesnaught-515374980

This is my last scan of my art. I will be unable to scan in the future because I will be staying in a student dormitory. I may take more time to complete another chapter as well.


	16. Revelations of an Evil

**Chapter 16: Revelations of an Evil**

The group arrived on the peak of one of the Segment Ridge's mountains. Eterna realised something was off when Queen Lilla suggested a technique she could employ.

She exclaimed, "I forgot that I can't use my moves because of The Null! Oh wait, since he was awakened while we battled against The End, does that mean he could choose not to activate his ability?"

"Probably. You don't need to worry about this Eterna! Even if The Null had used his ability, you can still find ways to use your power!" cheered Chestnut.

"Heh, yeah. By the way, I don't see anything happening in sight except clouds down below. I wonder why the queen stated something will happen here soon?"

As what Eterna had depicted, there was nothing but ice, rocks and swirling clouds. But without warning, the earth began to quake. Eterna used Shadowable to carry them up over the mountain and watched in horror as the mountains were cracking up.

"It can't be! It happens now!?" shouted Ice Kacang.

Loggerhead panicked, "Where are the legendaries? This continent is gonna sink!"

Then they saw something opened in the sky. It was a Hyperspace Hole. The trio legendaries, Hoopa and Diancie emerged out of it. Yveltal seemed to have healed from his injuries and he could flap his wings easily. Hoopa on the other hand used Psychic to levitate Zygarde and fully recovered Xerneas. Xerneas, in her reindeer-like form was radiating colours out of her eight horns. She did a stomping motion of her blade-like legs to signify her anxiety.

She said, "It is all my fault for unable to foresee this disaster. Even when Nature is now free on its own, the unbalance of life and death cannot be undone."

Hoopa spoke, "But Miss Eterna knows what to do." Then she turned to Eterna and continued, "So have you found the answer yet?"

Eterna was hesitant, "Yes. But…"

"Why are you muttering? Wait a minute, what is that big dark cloud heading this way?"

The dark cloud zoomed above the group and swirled around. Hoopa instinctively knew what it was. She told the rest of the Pokémons, "Stand back! This power spells doom!"

"Why?" asked Diancie.

"That is because…"

The dark cloud descended and entered Hoopa. She screamed as her body began to twist into a different form. Her purple hair became spiked and six gray arms moving around her body by telekinesis. A golden ring appeared on her torso and six purple armours covered the sides. Her gray legs were like a genie with purple stripes and golden shoes. The group was shocked of her transformation and Eterna and her friends were stunned that she was The Imprison! Once all the darkness was absorbed, she opened her bright green eyes and in a frenzy, she attacked Diancie with Dark Pulse and the attack knocked the princess onto Yveltal. He quickly grabbed her using his talons to save her. As for Zygarde and Xerneas, Hoopa was no longer using her Psychic to levitate them so they began to fall. Eterna immediately flew towards them and extended her Shadowable to save them. As she was still able to use her moves, she was relieved that The Null could indeed control his ability, but she could not hold them for long. She had no choice but to use Abyss's Door and they warped to the foot of the mountains. Xerneas and Zygarde thanked her and urged her to go back to where Yveltal and Diancie were. They had to take the battle on the snow-covered ground to defeat her. She nodded and she asked her friends to alight off her ride. After that, she warped herself near Yveltal. As she expected, Yveltal and Diancie were reasoning with Hoopa but she had seemed to have forgotten about them and was feeling annoyed. That reminded Eterna when she was in Obliteration Form for the first time.

When Hoopa used another wave of Dark Pulse, Eterna intertwined and repelled the attack using Malleaglow. Hoopa was impressed and spoke to her.

"You…are indeed a worthy opponent. Maybe I should have fun with you before I make this land disappear!"

"Hoopa! That foresight you had…it is you who will sink the land and not due to the imbalance of life and death!" mentioned Diancie.

"Silence!"

Hoopa used Psychic but Yveltal used Psychic as well to counter hers. While they engaged in a battle of telekinesis, Eterna opened Abyss's Door behind them and she pushed them using Shadowable. They exited where the others were. The End released Diancie since she was now safe to levitate above the ground. But the sudden change of battle ground made Hoopa mad and she opened nine ring portals behind her. Chestnut, Ice Kacang and including Diancie mega evolved and with Loggerhead, they went into attack stance in preparation against her attack. The trio legendaries were getting ready as well. As for Eterna and Aura, they went behind them to support the group should the attack proved too strong for them to handle.

Then all of the sudden, countless black spears came out of the portals. Xerneas guarded the group with her light barrier and it allowed her allies attacks to be shot out from the barrier. As the repeated attacks taking a toll on her concentration, Chestnut shot out Pin Needles from his shields, Ice Kacang used Blizzard, Loggerhead used Focus Blast and Diancie used Diamond Storm to repel the spear attacks. Hoopa smirked and created more portals behind them. Zygarde then used Aura Break to weaken Hoopa and Yveltal attacked the portals using Dark Pulses. The portals broke and now the three Mega Pokémons attacks hit her with full force. She was knocked back, but she put up a smile. Eterna and Aura knew something was off and quickly protect the group with their makeshift barriers.

A big portal appeared above them and now meteors were raining down on the barriers. As Aura's barrier broke first, Eterna and Xerneas combined their light powers and strengthened the light shield. It was fortunate that Eterna's light power managed to regenerate to full strength. Yveltal on the other hand decided it was time to use Phantom Force. He appeared right behind Hoopa and delivered the blow. With Hoopa being interrupted, Zygarde amplified his ability to further weaken her. Now Hoopa was pissed of The Null. She warped herself to where he was and using her six arms, she Ice Punched him. Zygarde roared telepathically as he was critically injured. Diancie then hastily used Moonblast to push her back, allowing Xerneas to heal him. However because of her segregating her power into healing Zygarde, the barrier weakened and the meteors were cracking it. Chestnut, Ice Kacang, Loggerhead and Yveltal now directed their attacks at the falling meteors to shatter them into smaller pieces so that Eterna could keep patching up the cracks in the barrier. Aura which had fully recovered helped as well by piercing through the falling space rocks.

Hoopa was frustrated of the team ganging up on her. She punched on the ground beside the fissures. The fissures were enlarged, so the group had to find a footing on a stable side except Eterna, Aura, Diancie and Yveltal. Eterna, still riding on her Shadowable urged Aura to move the group on ground away from the meteors so that she made the barrier to become offensive, but that would break it after use. Aura obliged and transported them away to a more stable ground. Eterna then infused her Malleaglow into the barrier and the barrier shot out many beams at the portal and destroyed it. The light barrier shattered as there was no more light power to maintain it. With the threat from the above gone, Eterna and Yveltal used their dark attacks on Hoopa, but it seemed they did not do much effect on her. Yveltal then switched to Oblivion Wing to suck life force out of her. He managed to regain his health; however that did not faze Hoopa as she got out of Diancie's Moonblast and punched Yveltal with Ice Punches. With Hoopa focused on him, Eterna took this chance and used Purity Swirl that stunned Hoopa into ceasing her attack. Then all of a sudden, a combination of elemental attacks wracked Hoopa. She scowled in pain.

She shouted, "Enough! You fools should not interfere with my battle against the two legged fox!"

In fury, she created a bigger ring portal that covered many kilometers across and black rain began to fall. Yveltal used Psychic to repel the raindrops, Diancie and Eterna created light shields against the rain, only to be baffled that the rain was 'corroding' the barrier. Realising the danger, Eterna flew to Diancie and took her to where the rest were. She also noticed Xerneas were having the same problem as well as her barrier began to deteriorate. Eterna voiced her concerns to them:

"This is no good! This rain is able to break our light attacks easily!"

The Null who was fully recovered thanks to Xerneas replied to her telepathically, _"I am constantly weakening her as well. I am appalled that she can still attack so furiously."_

"Will our mega forms be protected from the dark rain?" asked Ice Kacang.

"I am not sure." replied Diancie.

Chestnut said eagerly, "We should get out of the barrier now! We cannot stand here for long as she might attack the ground here once more!"

Diancie held him back, "Not so fast. Allow me test the rain first."

She extended her left arm out of Xerneas's barrier. She felt every drop seemed to erode something within her. It took her time to realise it was depleting her power gradually. She retracted her arm and told Chestnut and Ice Kacang the bad news.

Loggerhead commented, "Maybe we should attack her from afar as she would be too focused on The End.

Chestnut nodded as there were no other options for them to attack her, "Yeah. Let's do it again. How about you Eterna?"

"I will back Yveltal up. Maybe one of you tell me telepathically when you all attack?"

"I will do it," volunteered Xerneas, "since I will be focused on healing and putting up walls."

"I will back her up so don't worry about the shield Miss Eterna!" responded Diancie.

"Okay! And so, here I go!"

She headed back to where Yveltal was attacking Hoopa using Oblivion Wing while he repelled the raindrops. Eterna extended her Shadowable as a shield instead as her light barrier made by Malleaglow had completely destroyed. She also used it to pin Hoopa down from behind her. Yveltal then used another round of Oblivion Wing to recover his strength, however it did not recover his mental prowess and so he was in danger of being soaked. Eterna noticed his slightly sluggish movement and went to his side to shelter him. Yveltal thanked Eterna for saving him and said:

"And to think we were fighting for each other's belief not long ago…Eterna, it might be an assumption from me but I think you are immune to the dark rain."

Eterna was bewildered, "Why is that so?"

"Your dark power's origin is different from mine I believe. Negativity goes well with negativity after all."

"But isn't your power is draining life? You could completely weaken her drastically!"

"I am…but that will take more time to do so. She has huge life force resides inside her. It took me a lot of concentration to try to avoid her Ice Punches while doing draining her life force. And speaking of which, she is about to do another Ice Punches on me now."

Hoopa broke out of Eterna's Shadowable restriction and unleashed six frosty arms on her barrier. It took her just a few seconds to break it apart. Eterna then instantly pushed Yveltal away and took a direct hit from Hoopa's punches. She gagged out blood as her lower body was crippled. Hoopa laughed at her hysterically for her bravery in sacrificing herself for Yveltal.

"Hey hey! I didn't ask you to protect him! Why don't I erase him from existence so that you can just worry of yourself?"

Eterna was healing herself with her light and could not speak, but Xerneas warned her of a combination attack from the group. Eterna then gestured Yveltal to lift her higher in the air. He did so and the elemental attacks rammed on Hoopa once more. This time she flinched; allowing Eterna to have more time to heal herself. In a minute, she could finally speak again.

"I will…never take the full blow of her attack again. I almost died."

"If that is the case, I should let you battle her while I go to where the rest are. She wants to fight you so give it your all." he replied.

"What? How can I attack her by my own?"

"You won't be on your own. We will back you up when you are in a critical spot. When you managed to grab hold of her, you should be able to use the golden ring to take her powers and then you have to seal it in golden thorn. You will need to channel your light and dark powers into it to activate. That was how my sister and I managed to seal her a thousand years ago. "

"Okay, I will do it then."

Eterna created another Shadowable to ride on and eyed at Yveltal flying away. Now Eterna was nervous; fighting a Pokémon that was way above her league spooked her. Nevertheless, she had to press on. She went into Obliteration Form and with her powered up and her nervousness was sealed away, she was now confident enough to take Hoopa on alone.

Hoopa was interested of Eterna's new appearance. She squealed in delight as she could feel immense power radiated from her. She tested her out by using Dark Pulse. Her attack was instantly absorbed by Eterna. Eterna then took out her wand and summoned Devoid Dominance. The five beams hit her and she seemed to weaken a little.

Hoopa spoke in glee, "Oh I love it! You have the power that is similar to me! I am so hype that I can use my ultimate move now!"

She closed her huge portal and created one in front of her. Then she put all her hands in the back of the portal. Eterna spotted ripples of darkness from it. In a blink of an eye, a huge amount of black aura swept passed her. Eterna could feel Hoopa's immense power trying to crush her power to kill her. Even the ground below her was quaking from it. But for some reason, the mountains beside her had stopped collapsing. It could be the power Hoopa had emitted had balance the life and death ratio. But that could also mean that there were Pokémons died from the quakes to add in the death ratio as well.

Eterna readied her wand. She was going to try a different technique. She reverted back to her normal form and focused on her wand; a white flame came out of it. Jubilant that she had succeeded, she twirled the wand. The white flame spun around and moved towards Hoopa. Hoopa was not sure what kind of attack Eterna had used and just stood there. But that was a mistake as the light swirl consuming her dark aura to power up itself and rammed onto her.

She exclaimed, "What is this? How can light is able to increase its strength using my Hyperspace Fury?"

Eterna replied, "Hurrisurge of Liberation. This move should put you down!"

"I won't let you!"

She tuned her ring portal to suck her light attack. Eterna quickly extinguish the light to prevent further absorption. Then Hoopa tuned the portal again and this time, Eterna's attack was redirected back at her but it had no effect. Hoopa was shocked and Eterna used this chance to create Abyss's Door. She exited behind Hoopa and strangled her neck using Malleaglow and Shadowable combined. She also directed some of her powers into the golden ring and hope it would activate on her. Unfortunately, it did not work.

She was aghast, "Damn! Why isn't this ring working on you? I managed to grab you using both of my powers!"

Hoopa laughed, "Well well, You being the bearer of the ring don't know how to seal me? That is your lost!"

Hoopa flipped her portal and threw Eterna into the ring portal. She even cut her Malleaglow with ease. Panicked, she tried to create Abyss's Door but it failed to appear. Hoopa laughed and said, "Well, I enjoyed battling against you very much. To remember this occasion, you shall be in my realm for eternality! Farewell!"

"Nooooooooooooooooooo!" Eterna's scream faded as the portal closed.

The group saw the situation took place too quickly for them to defend her. In rage, they gave everything they got to weaken Hoopa further so that they could force her to reopen the portal. Chestnut was the most aggressive as he went close to her using Rollout to swiftly avoid her Psychic and shot Pin Needles at her, though she repelled that attack easily. Also, Yveltal and Zygarde used their abilities to the fullest to weaken her further. Hoopa had becoming less mobile in her movements, but she could still use powerful moves to knock them back. Hoopa realised that a group attacking her in a coordinate way could hinder her process, so she used Hyperspace Hole and warped away somewhere. The group could not stop her as she did it too quickly for them to react, though fortunately the legendary trio could pinpoint her location. They concluded that she had warped to Wintry Beauty, and that was further north of where they were. Now the problem was how to get to there and she might warp again if she was found. And the land began to quake once more as this time Hoopa was using her power to try to sink the continent. Desperation set in as there was nothing much they could do but to save the Pokémons in this continent.

As the trio legendaries and Diancie moved out, Chestnut, Loggerhead, Ice Kacang and Aura decided to stay back. They were hoping for Eterna to return and the feeling of guilt of not able to save her tormenting them. However, they would not stand idly as they helped the Pokémons to get to safety around their area.

* * *

><p>Eterna sparked Inundation Flames all around her, only to be vanished in the vastness of space. The space Eterna was in was just a dark swirl of purple. Occasionally she could see 'shapes' forming and then broken off. Eterna concluded that after seeing the shapes forming, the spears that came out of the portals that Hoopa had created earlier was formed by her visualisation. She tried to visualise to try to make the shapes appeared, but to no avail. Even in her powered up form, she felt useless for unable to finds ways to get out of the realm.<p>

As she wandered further in the realm, she saw a floating black rock ahead of her. There, a gray slab inserted in the ground revealed golden words when she was close enough to it. It stated:

_Hoopa is the resultant of the carelessness of this world's creator_

_As it is not his nature to destroy of what he created_

_He gave her a huge weakness instead_

_Only a combination of both light and dark infuse in the golden ring _

_Could seal the realm that is the origin of her power_

After Eterna had finished reading, the words dissipated. She uttered, "Oh no. How can this be? A god that made a mistake in his creation proven by text! Anyway I have no time to think about this. I should pour my powers into the ring again."

She combined her light and curse powers into the ring. The ring lit up this time, however there was no significant changes from it. She decided to pour more of her powers into it. This time, the ring shone brightly and enlarged itself around three quarters of her height. It hovered around her and seemed to signal her that she needed one more step to fully activate it. Eterna instinctively knew that she needed more power to use the ring. She went into Obliteration Form once more. The ring acknowledged her prowess and levitated behind her back. Four flame-like designs appeared on it as well, like the placement of the four directions in a compass. The flame designs for western and eastern part had their tips flared upwards, while for the northern and southern were like a candle light. Whenever Eterna moved, the ring followed. Now what she had to do was to use it. She grabbed the ring and threw it above her. It enlarged even bigger than before, so much so that the ring extended beyond her view. The ring then sucked the realm like a black hole. The purple realm spiralled into the ring until only the floating black rock with the slab in it and the white background remained.

This time, new words appeared on the slab. It explained why white light was left in the emptiness of space, including other descriptions as well.

_Any living being is made by New Light_

_The negativity is a form of teaching from New Light_

_So that the living beings will understand the blessing of Life_

_And to remand and repent of their ill ways_

_So no matter how much negativity exist within them_

_They remain as beings of light_

_As for gods guided by Darkness and New Light_

_One of them had accidentally made some living beings too sceptical to negativity_

_It became their power and they chose destruction fuelled by desire and despair_

_Darkness wanted to vanquish the god for making careless mistakes_

_But New Light decided that they should stand by and watch_

_Instead of ending them similar of what they had done with Life that carried darkness_

_The golden ring and the golden thorn were made by this world's god_

_The ring takes negativity power away from a living being he carelessly created_

_It will then fly to the golden thorn to place the power within it_

_And return to Skyward Blocks to be safely kept away_

_Should the golden thorn is destroyed_

_The ring will keep the power within till a new seal is made_

Eterna did not comprehend why the slab stated 'should the golden thorn is destroyed'. There was no way that a seal could be destroyed easily. After the golden words disappeared once more, the golden ring opened a portal to the outside world. Relieved that she could finally get out, she exited the portal. Startled that she fell into the sea, she looked up and saw a clear blue sky overhead and Confinement Form Hoopa levitating behind her, unconscious. Eterna was devastated to find that the continent she was in for weeks had completely destroyed.

* * *

><p>And here is the link to show the design of the golden ring behind Eterna's back!<p>

art/Eterna-Obliteration-Retribution-Form-518805619

Thank you for reading my story! I am in a tight spot of assignments so I will need more time to make another chapter.


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